Modern painters

This is a digital copy of a book that was preserved for generations on library shelves before it was carefully scanned by Google as part of a project
to make the world's books discoverable online.

It has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one that was never subject
to copyright or whose legal copyright term has expired. Whether a book is in the public domain may vary country to country. Public domain books
are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture and knowledge that's often difficult to discover.

Marks, notations and other marginalia present in the original volume will appear in this file - a reminder of this book's long journey from the
publisher to a library and finally to you.

Usage guidelines

Google is proud to partner with libraries to digitize public domain materials and make them widely accessible. Public domain books belong to the
public and we are merely their custodians. Nevertheless, this work is expensive, so in order to keep providing this resource, we have taken steps to
prevent abuse by commercial parties, including placing technical restrictions on automated querying.

We also ask that you:

+ Make non-commercial use of the files We designed Google Book Search for use by individuals, and we request that you use these files for
personal, non-commercial purposes.

+ Refrain from automated querying Do not send automated queries of any sort to Google's system: If you are conducting research on machine
translation, optical character recognition or other areas where access to a large amount of text is helpful, please contact us. We encourage the
use of public domain materials for these purposes and may be able to help.

+ Maintain attribution The Google "watermark" you see on each file is essential for informing people about this project and helping them find
additional materials through Google Book Search. Please do not remove it.

+ Keep it legal Whatever your use, remember that you are responsible for ensuring that what you are doing is legal. Do not assume that just
because we believe a book is in the public domain for users in the United States, that the work is also in the public domain for users in other
countries. Whether a book is still in copyright varies from country to country, and we can't offer guidance on whether any specific use of
any specific book is allowed. Please do not assume that a book's appearance in Google Book Search means it can be used in any manner
anywhere in the world. Copyright infringement liability can be quite severe.

About Google Book Search

Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers
discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web

at |http : //books . google . com/

HhJ 20UX 7

KE-7J(2vr

HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY

From the Lihrary of

JOHN LIVINGSTON LOWES

Professor of English 1918-1930

Francis Lcc Higginson Professor of English

Literature 1930-1945

MODERN PAINTERS.

VOLUME III.

J "Rualtin.

Lake, Land, and Clo-uLd . " ^^°^^

NY.

( near Como .

MODERN

P A I F T E E S.

BT

JOHN RUSKIN, M.A.

AUTHOEOV

''THB BXOIOB of YXNICR, "THX SBYKIT LAMPS 09 ABCHXTXCTUBE, KTC. XTQ

. , . • *'Accti8emenot

Ofarrosance,

If, haTinff walked with Nature,

And offered, far as frailty woald allow,

My heart a daily sacrifice to Truth,

I now aArm of Nature and of Truth—

Whom I have served— that their Divinity

Revolts, offended at the ways of men.

Philosophers, who, though the human soul

Be of a thousand faculties composed.

And tw)c:i ten thousand interests, do y<st prlio

This aDol, and the transcendent universe.

No more than as a mirror that reflects

To proud SelMove her own intelligence."

WOBZSWOBTH.

PART IV.

7IBST AMERICAN EDITION.

NEW YORK:
JOHN TVILEY,

56 WALKER. STREET.
1863.

KE 13Q.S

■\

: < /•

PREFACE.

As this preface is nearly all about myself, no one need take
the trouble of reading it, unless he happens to be desirous of
knowing — ^what I, at least, am bound to state, — ^the circum-
stances which have caused the long delay of the work, as well
as the alterations which will be noticed in its form.

The first and second volumes were written to check, as far as
I could, the attacks upon Turner which prevented the public
from honoring his genius, at the time when his power was
greatest. The check was partially given, but too late ; Turner
was seized by painful illness not long after the second volume
appeared j his works, towards the close of the year 1845,
showed a conclusive failure of power ; and I saw that nothing
remained for me to write, but his epitaph.

The critics had done their proper and appointed work ; they
had elnbittered, more than those who did not know Turner
intimately could have believed possible, the closing years of
his life ; and had blinded the world in general (as it appears
ordained by Fate that the world always shall be blinded) to
the presence of a great spirit among them, till the hour of its
departure. With them, and their successful work, I had
nothing iQore to do \ the account of gain and loss, of gifts and
gratitude, between Turner and his countrymen, was for ever
closed. He could only be left to his quiet death at Chelsea, —
the sun upon his face ; they to dispose a length of funeral
through Ludgate, and bury, with threefold honor, his body in
St. Paul's, his pictures at Charing Cross, and his purposes in
Chancery, But with respect to the illustration and preserva-
tion of those of his works which remained unburied, I felt that
much might yet be done, if I could at all succeed in proving

VI PREFACE.

that these works had some nobleness in them, and were worth
preservation. I pursued my task, therefore, as I had at first
proposed, with this only difference in method, — that instead of
writing in continued haste, such as I had been forced into at first
by the urgency of the occasion, I set myself to do the work
as well as I could, and to collect materials for the complete
examination of the canons of art received among us.

I have now given ten years of my life to the single purpose
of enabling myself to judge rightly of art, and spent them in
labor as earnest and continuous as men usually undertake to
gain position, or accumulate fortune. It is true, that the public
still call me an " amateur ;" nor have I ever been able to persuade
them that it was possible to work steadily and hard with any
other motive than that of gaining bread, or to give up a fixed
number of hours every day to the fartherance of an object
unconnected with personal interests. I have, however, given
up so much of life to this object ; earnestly desiring to ascer-
tain, and be able to teach, the truth respecting art ; and also
knowing that this truth was, by time and labor, definitely
ascertainable.

It is an idea too frequently entertained, by persons who are
not much interested in art, that there are no laws of right or
wrong concerning it ; and that the best art is that which pleases
most widely. Hence the constant allegation of " dogmatism '*
against any one who states unhesitatingly either preference or
principle, respecting pictures. There are, however, laws of
truth and right in painting, just as fixed as those of harmony
in music, or of affinity in chemistry. Those laws are perfectly
ascertainable by labor, and ascertainable no otherwise. It is
as ridiculous for any one to speak positively about painting
who has not given a great part of his life to its study, as it
would be for a person who had never studied chemistry to give
a lecture on affinities of elements ; but it is also as ridiculous
for a person to speak hesitatingly about laws of painting who
has conscientiously given his time to their ascertainment, as it
would be for Mr. Faraday to announce in a dubious manner that
iron had an affinity for oxygen, and to put the question to the
vote of his audience whether it had or not. Of course there are
many things, in all stages of knowledge, which cannot be dog

PREFACK. Vll

matically stated ; and it will be found, by any candid reader,
either of what I have before written, or of this book, that in
many cases, I am Tiot dogmatic. The phrase, " I think so,"
or, *' it seems so to me," will be met with continually ; and I
pray the reader to believe that I use such expression always in
seriousness, never as matter of form.

It may perhaps be thought that, considering the not very
elaborate structure of the following volumes, they might have
been finished sooner. But it Will be found, on reflection, that
the ranges of inquiry engaged in demanded, even for their
slight investigation, time and pains which are quite unrepre-
sented in the result. It often required a week or two's hard
walking to determine some geological problem, now dismissed
in an unnoticed sentence ; and it constantly needed examina-
tion and thought, prolonged during many days in the picture
gallery, to form opinions which the reader may suppose to be
dictated by caprice, and will hear only to dispute.

A more serious disadvantage, resulting from the necessary
breadth of subject, was the chance of making mistakes in
minor and accessory points. For the labor of a critic who
sincerely desires to be just, extends into more fields than it is
possible for any single hand to furrow straightly. He has to
take Home note of many physical sciences ; of optics, geometry,
geology, botany, and anatomy ; he must acquaint himself with
the works of all great artists, and with the temper and history
of the times in which they lived ; he must be a fair meta-
physician, and a careful observer of the phenomena of natural
scenery. It is not possible to extend the range of work thus
widely, without running the chance of occasionally making mis-
takes ; and if I carefully guarded against that chance, I should
be compelled both to shorten my powers of usefulness in many
directions, and to lose much time over what work I undertook.
All that I can secure, therefore, is Tightness in main points
and main tendencies ; for it is perfectly possible to protect
oneself against small errors, and yet to make great and final
error in the sum of work : on the other hand, it is equally pos-
sible to fall into many small errors, and yet be right in tenden-
cy all the while, and entirely right in the end. In this respect,
some men may bo compared to careful travellers, who neither

Viii PREFACE.

Btnmble at stones, nor slip in sloughs, but have, from the
beginning of their journey to its close, chosen the wrong road ;
and others to those who, however slipping or stumbling at the
wayside, have yet their eyes fixed on the true gate and goal
(stumbling, perhaps, even the more because they have), and
will not fail of reaching them. Such are assuredly the safer
guides : he who follows them may avoid their slips, and be
their companion in attainment.

Although, therefore, it is not possible but that, in the discus-
sion of so many subjects as are necessarily introduced in the
following pages, here and there a chance should arise of minor
mistake or misconception, the reader need not be disturbed by
the detection of any such. He will find always that they do
not affect the matter mainly in hand.

I refer especially in these remarks to the chapters on Classi-
cal and Mediaeval Landscape. It is certain, that in many
respects, the views there stated must be inaccurate or incom-
plete ; for how should it be otherwise when the subject is one
whose proper discussion would require knowledge of the entire
history of two great ages of the world 1 But I am well assured
that the suggestions in those chapters are useful ; and that
even if, after farther study of the subject, the reader should
find cause to differ with me in this or the other speciality, he
will yet thank me for helping him to a certain length in the
investigation, and confess, perhaps, that he could not at last
have been right, if I had not first ventured to be wrong.

And of one thing he may be certified, that any error I fall into
will not be in an illogical deduction : I may mistake the mean-
ing of a symbol, or the angle of a rock- cleavage, but not draw
an inconsequent conclusion. I state this, because it has often
been said that I am not logical, by persons who do not so much
as know what logic means. Next to imagination, the power of
perceiving logical relation is one of the rarest among men ;
certainly, of those with whom I have conversed, I have found
always ten who had deep feeling, quick wit, or extended know-
ledge, for one who could set down a syllogism without a flaw ;
and for ten who could set down a syllogism, only one who
could entirely understand that a square has four sides. Even as
I am sending these sheets to press, a work is put into my hand,

PREFACE. IX

written to prove (I would, from the depth of my heart, it could
prove) that there was no ground for what I said in the Stones
Venice respecting the logical probability of the continuity of
evil. It seems learned, temperate, thoughtful, everything in
feeling and aim that a book should be, and yet it begins with this
sentence :

" The question cited in our preface, ' Why not infinite good out of
infinite evil f * must be taken to imply — for it else can have no weight,
— that in order to the production of iiiiinite good, the existence of infinite
evil is indispensable."

So, if I had said that there was no reason why honey should
not be sucked out of a rock, and oil out of a flinty rock, the
writer would have told me this sentence must be taken to im-
ply — for it else could have no weight, — that in order to the
production of honey, the existence of rocks is indispensable.
No less intense and marvellous are the logical errors into which
our best writers are continually falling, owing to the notion
that laws of logic will help them better than common sense.
Whereas any man who can reason at all, does it instinctively,
and tatkes leaps over intermediate syllogisms by the score, yet
never misses his footing at the end of the leap ; but he who
cannot instinctively argue, might as well, with the gout in
both feet, try to follow a chamois hunter by the help of
crutches, as to follow, by the help of syllogism, a person who
has the right use of his reason. I should not, however^ have
thought it necessary to allude to this common charge Against my
writings, but that it happens to confirm some views I have
long entertained, and which the reader will find glanced at in
their proper place, respecting the necessity of a more practi-
cally logical education for our youth. Of other various charges
I need take no note, because they are always answered the
one by the other. The complaint made against me to-day for
being narrow and exclusive, is met to-morrow by indignation
that I should admire schools whose characters cannot be re-
conciled ; and the assertion of one critic, that I am always
contradicting myself, is balanced by the vexation of another,
at my ten years' obstinacies in error.

1*

X - PREFACE.

I once intended the illustrations to these volumes to be more
numerous and elaborate, but the art of photography now en-
ables any reader to obtain as many memoranda of the facts of
nature as he needs ; and, in the course of my ten years' pause,
I have formed plans for the representation of some of the
works of Turner on their own scale ; so that it would have
been quite useless to spend time in reducing drawings to the
size of this page, which were afterwards to be engraved of their
own size.* I have therefore here only given illustrations
enough to enable the reader, who has not access to the works
of Turner, to understand the principles laid down in the text,
and apply them to such art as may be within his reach. And
I owe sincere thanks to the various engravers who have work-
ed with me, for the zeal and care with which they have carried
out the requirements in each case, and overcome diflSculties of
a nature often widely differing from those involved by their
habitual practice. I would not make invidious distinction,
where all have done well ; but may perhaps be permitted to
point, as examples of what I mean, to the 3rd and 6th Plates
in this volume (the 6tli being left unlettered in order not to in-
jure the effect of its ground), in which Mr. Le Keux and Mr.
Armytage have exactly facsimiled, in line engraving, drawings
of mine made on a grey ground touched with white, and have
given even the loaded look of the body color. The power of
thus imitating actual touches of color with pure lines will be, I
believe, of great future importance in rendering Turner's work
on a large scale. As for the merit or demerit of these or other
drawings of my own, which I am obliged now for the sake of
illustration often to engrave, I believe I could speak of it im-
partially, and should unreluctantly do so ; but I leave, as most
readers will think I ought, such judgment to them, merely beg-
ging them to remember that there are two general principles
to be kept in mind in examining the drawings of any writer on
art : the first, that they ought at least to show such ordinary
skill in draughtsmanship, as to prove that the writer knows
what the good qualities of drawing are; the second, thri they

* I should be very grateful to the proprietors of pictures or drawings by
Turner, if they would send me lists of the works in their possession; as I
am desirous of forming a systematic catalogue of all his works.

PREFACE.

are never to be expected to equal, in either execution or con-
ception, the work of accomplished artists, — for the simple rea*
son, that in order to do anything thoroughly well, the whole
mind, and the whole available time, must be given to that
single art. It is probable, for reasons which will be noted in
the following pages, that the critical and executive faculties
are in great part independent of each other ; so that it is near-
ly as great an absurdity to require of any critic that he should
equal in execution even the work which he condemns, as to
require of the audience which hisses a piece of vocal music that
they should instantly chant it in truer harmony themselves.
But whether this be true or not (it is at least ontrue to this ex-
tent, that a certain power of drawing is indispensable to the
critic of art), and supposing that the executive and critical
powers always exist in some correspondent degree in the same
person, still they cannot be cultivated to the same extent.
The attention required for the development of a theory is ne-
cessarily withdrawn from the design of a drawing, and the time
devoted to the realization of a form is lost to the solution of a
problem. Choice mtist at last be made between one and the
other power, as the principal aim of life ; and if the painter
should find it necessary sometimes to explain one of his pic-
tures in words, or the writer to illustrate his meaning with a
drawing, the skill of the one need not be doubted because his
logic is feeble, nor the sense of the other because his pencil is
listless.

As, however, it is sometimes alleged by the opponents of my
principles, that I have never done anything, it is proper that
the reader should know exactly the amount of work for which
I am answerable in these illustrations. When an example is
given from any of the works of Turner, it is either etched by
myself from the original drawing, or engraved from a drawing
of mine, translating Turner's work out of color into black and
white, as for instance, the frontispiece to the fourth volume.
When a plate is inscribed as " after " such and such a master,
I have always myself made the drawing, in black and white,
from the original picture; as, for instance, Plate 11, in this
volume. If it has been made from a previously existing en-
graving, it is inscribed with the name of the first engraver at

xu freface;

the left-hand lowest corner ; as, for instance, Plate 18. in Vo!,
IV. Outline etchings are either by mj own h«nd on the steel,
as Plate 12. here, and 20. 21. in Vol. IV. ; or copies from my
pen drawings, etched by Mr. Boys, with a fidelity for which I
sincerely thank him ; one, Plate 22. Vol. IV., is both drawn
and etched by Mr. Boys from an old engraving. Most of the
other illustrations are engraved from my own studies from
nature. The colored Plate (7. in this volume) is from a draw-
ing executed with great skill by my assistant, Mr. J. J. Laing,
from MSS. in the British Museum ; and the lithography of it
has been kindly superintended by Mr. Henry Shaw, whose
renderings of mediaeval ornaments stand, as far as I know,
quite unrivalled in modem art. The two woodcuts of mediae-
val design. Figs. 1. and 3., are also from drawings by Mr.
Laing, admirably cut by Miss Byfield. I use this word " ad-
mirably," not with reference to mere delicacy of execution,
which can usually be had for money, but to the perfect fidelity
of facsimile, which is in general vot to be had for money, and
by which Miss Byfield has saved me all trouble with respect
to the numerous woodcuts in the fourth volume ; first, by her
excellent renderings of various portions of Albert Durer's
woodcuts ; and, secondly, by reproducing, to their last dot or
scratch, my own pen diagrams, drawn in general so roughly
that few wood-engravers would have condescended to cut.
them with care, and yet always involving some points in
which care was indispensable. One or two changes* have been
permitted in the arrangement of the book, which make the text
in these volumes not altogether a symmetrical continuation of
that in former ones. Thus, I thought it better to put the
numbers of paragraphs always at the left-hand side of the
page ; and as the summaries, in small type, appeared to me for
the most part cumbrous and useless, I have banished them,
except where there were complicated divisions of subject
which it seemed convenient to indicate at the margin. I am
not sorry thus to carry out my own principle of the sacrifice
of architectural or constructive symmetry to practical service.
The plates are, in a somewhat unusual way, numbered con-
secutively through the two volumes, as I intend them to be also
through the fifth. This plan saves much trouble in references.

PREFACE.

I have only to express, in conclusion, my regret that it has
ieen impossible to finish the work within the limits first pro-
posed. Having, of late, found my designs always requiring
enlargement in process of execution, I will take care, in future,
to set no limits whatsoever to any good intentions. In the
present instance I trust the reader will pardon me, as the later
efforts of our schools of art have necessarily introduced many
new topics of discussion.

And so I wish him heartily a happy New Year.

Denmark Hill, Jan. 18S6w

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

PART IV.

OF MANY THINGS.

PAOl

Chaftes L — Of the received Opinions touching the " Grand Style,** . 1

" IL— Of Realization, 17

'* IIL— Of the real Nature of Greatness of Style 24

« I v.— Of the False Ideal :— First, Religious, 46

" v.— Of the False Ideal :— Secondly, Profane, 63

VL— Of the True Ideal :— First, Purist, 72

" VIL— Of the True Ideal :— Secondly, Naturalist, 80

" VIIL— Of the True Ideal :— Thirdly, Grotesque, 96

IX.— Of Finish, 112

" X.— Of the Use of Pictures 1 28

" XL — Of the Novelty of Landscape, 148

" XIL— Of the Pathetic Fallacy, 166

** XIIL— Of Chissical Landscape, 173

" XIV.— Of Mediffival Landscape :— Firet, the Fields 196

" XV. — Of MedifiBval Landscape : — Secondly, the Rocks, 235

" XVL — OfiModern Landscape, 254

" XVIL— The Moral of Landscape, 286

"XVIIL— Of the Teachers of Turner, 815

APPENDIX.

I. Claude's Tree-drawing, 841

' IL German Philosophy, .^ 848

nL Plagiarinc^. 845

LIST OF PLATES TO VOL. IIL

Frontlspieoe. DOce, Land, and Cloud .

The Author -.

. J. C. AKMTTAOa.

Plate

1. Trae and False Griffins .

TheAiUhar .

FarincpM*

. E.P. CuF» . . 104

2. Drawing of Tree-bark .

Variom .

. J. H. LkKxvz

iia

8. Strength of old Pine.

TheAtUhor

. J. H. LbKbux

118

4 Bamincatlon according to Glande .

Clauds

. J. H. Le Keux

121

6. Good and Bad Tree-drawing .

Turner and Constable J. Cousin

128

& Foreground Leafiage .

The Author

. J. C. Abxttaqs .

123

7. Botany of the Thirteenth Century .

MUaal-Paintera

. nXKEY SnAW

208

8. The Growth of Leayes

TheAvthor

. K.P.ClTFF . .

209

9. Botany of the Fourteenth Century.

ma8al^Pa4mUr8

. Cuff; H. Swait ,

, 212

10. Geology of the Middle Ages . .

Leonardo^ dbo. .

. E. P. Cuff . .

245

11. Latest Purism

Raphael .

. J. C. Abmttagb .

823

12. The Shores of Wharfe .

J. W. M. Turner

. Tub Autuos .

821

18. First Mountain-Natnralism .

Masaccio .

. JH. LbKeux .

822

14 The Lombard Apennlne .

The Author

. Tiios. LuPTo:c

822

15. St. George of the Seaweed

The Author

. TlIOS- LUPTON

828

16. Early Naturalism . . . .

Titian

. J. C. Abmttagb .

828

Tinioret . .

. J. C. Ajuittagb .

824

MODERN PAINTERS.

•■S^^^N^^J^^N^W

PART IV.
OF MANY THINGS,

CHAPTER I.

OF THE RECKITED OPINIONS TOUCHING THE "GRAND STYLE."

§ 1. In taking up the clue of an inquiry, now intermitted for
nearly ten years, it may be well to do as a traveller would,
who had to recommence an interrupted journey in a guideless
country ; and, ascending, as it were, some little hill beside our
road, note how far we have already advanced, and what
pleasantest ways we may choose for farther progress.

I endeavored, in the beginning of the first volume, to divide
the sources of pleasure op^n to us in Art into certain groups,
which might conveniently be studied in succession. After
some preliminary discussion, it was concluded (Part I. Chap.
III. § 86), that these groups were, in the main, three ; consisting,
first, of the pleasures taken in perceiving simple resemblance to
Nature (Ideas of Truth) ; secondly, of the pleasures taken in
the beauty of the things chosen to be painted (Ideas of Beauty) ;
and, lastly, of pleasures taken in the meanings and relations of
these things (Ideas of Relation).

The first volume, treating of the ideas of Truth, was chiefly
occupied with an inquiry into the various success with which
different artists had represented the facts of Nature. — an inquiry
necessarily conducted very imperfectly, owing to the want of
pictorial illustration.

VOL. III. 1

2 OP THE RECEIVED OPINIONS [pART IV.

The second volume nearly opened the inquiiy into the nature
of ideas of Beauty and Relation, by analysing (as far as I was
able to do so) the two faculties of the human mind which mainly
seized such ideas ; namely, the contemplative and imaginative
faculties.

It remains for us to examine the various success of artists,
especially of the great landscape-painter whose works have
been throughout our principal subject, in addressing these
faculties of the human mind, and to consider who among them
has conveyed the noblest ideas of beauty, and touched the
deepest sources of thought

§ 2. I do not intend, however, now to pursue the inquiry in
a method so laboriously systematic ; for the subject may, it
seems to me, be more usefully treated by pursuing the different
questions which rise out of it just as they occur \o us, without
too great scrupulousness in marking connections, or insisting on
sequences. Much time is wasted by human beings, in general,
on establishment of systems ; and it often takes more labor to
master the intricacies of an artificial connection, than to remem-
ber the separate facts which are so carefully connected. I
suspect that system-makers, in general, are not of much more
use, each in his own domain, than, in that of Pomona, the old
women who tie cherries upon sticks, for the more convenient
portableness of the same. To cultivate well, and choose well,
your cherries, is of some importance ; but if they can be had in
their own wild way of clustering about their crabbed stalk, it is
a better connection for them than any other ; and, if they can-
not, then, so that they be not bruised, it makes to a boy of a
practical disposition, not much difference whether he gets them
by handfuls, or in beaded symmetry on the exaltiug stick. I
purpose, therefore, henceforward to trouble myself little with
sticks or twine, but to arrange my chapters with a view to con-
venient reference, rather than to any careful division of subjects,
and to follow out, in any by-ways that may open, on right
hand or left, whatever question it seems useful at any moment
to settle.

§ 3. And, in the outset, I find myself met by one which I
ought to have touched upon before — one of especial interest in
the present state of the Arts. I have said that the art is

VOL, III.] TOUCHING THE

y

greatest which includes the greatest ideas ; but I have not
endeavored to define the nature of this greatness in the ideas
themselves. We speak of great truths, of great beauties, great
thoughts. What is it which makes one truth greater than
another, one thought greater than another ? This question is,
I repeat, of peculiar importance at the present time ; for, during
a period now of some hundred and fifty years, all writers on Art
who have pretended to eminence, have insisted much on a sup-
posed distinction between what they call the Great and the Low
Schools ; using the terms " High Art," " Great or Ideal Style,"
and other such, as descriptive of a certain noble manner of
painting, which it was desirable that all students of Art should
be early led to reverence and adopt ; and characterising as
" vulgar," or ** low," or " realist," another manner of painting
and conceiving, which it was equally necessary tliat all students
should be taught to avoid.

But lately this established teaching, never very intelligible,
has been gravely called in question. The advocates and self-
supposed practisers of " High Art" are beginning to be looked
upon with doubt, and their peculiar phraseology to be treated
with even a certain degi-ee of ridicule. And other forms of Art
are partly developed among us, which do not pretend to be
high, but rather to be strong, healthy, and humble. This mat-
ter of " highness" in Art, therefore, deserves our most careful
consideration. Has it been, or is it, a true highness, a true
princeliness, or only a show of it, consisting in courtly manners
and robes of state ? Is it rocky height or cloudy height,
adamant or vapor, on which the sun of praise so long has risen
and set ? It will be well at once to consider this.

§ 4. And first, let us get, as quickly as may be, at the exact
meaning with which the advocates of '*High Art" use that
somewhat obscure and figurative term.

I do not know that the principles in question are anywhere
more distinctly expressed than in two papers in the Idler, writ-
ten by Sir Joshua Reynolds", of course under the immediate
sanction of Johnson ; and which may thus be considered as the
utterance of the views then held upon the subject by the artists
of chief skill, and critics of most sense, arranged in a form so
brief and clear, as to admit of their being brought before the

4 OF TUB RECEIVED OPINIONS [PAUT IV.

. public for a morning's entertainment. I cannot, therefore, it
seems to me, do better than quote these two letters, or at least
the important parts of them, examining the exact meaning
of each passage as it occurs. There are, in all, in the Idler
three letters on painting, Nos. 76. 79. and 82. ; of these, the
first is directed only against the impertinences of pretended
connoisseurs, and is as notable for its faithfulness, as for its wit,
in the description of the several modes of criticism in an arti-
ficial and ignorant state of society ; it is only, therefore, in the
two last papers that we find the expression of the doctrines
which it is our business to examine.

No. 79. (Saturday, Oct. 20th, 1759) begins, after a short pre-
amble, with the following passage : —

" Amongst the painters, and the writers on painting, there is
one maxim universally admitted and continually inculcated.
Imitate nature is the invariable rule ; but I know none who
have explained in what manner this rule is to be understood ;
the sequence of which is, that every one takes it in the most
obvious sense, that objects are represented naturally when
they have such relief that they seem real. It may appear
strange, perhaps, to hear this sense of the rule disputed ; but it
must be considered, that, if the excellency of a painter consisted
only in this kind of imitation, Painting must lose its rank, and
be no longer considered as a liberal art, and sister to Poetry,
this imitation being nearly mechanical, in which the slowest
intellect is always sure to succeed best; for the painter of
genius cannot stoop to drudgery, in which the understanding
has no part ; and what pretence has the art to claim kindred
with poetry but by its power over the imagination 1 To this
power the painter of genius directs him ; in this sense he studies
nature, and often arrives at his end, even by being unnatural in
the confined sense of the word."

" The grand style of painting requires this minute attention
to be carefully avoided, and must be kept as separate from it as
the style of poetry from that of history. (Poetical ornaments
destroy that air of truth and plainness which ought to charac-
terise history ; but the very being of poetry consists in depart-
ing from this plain narrative, and adopting every ornament

VOL. III.] TOUCHING THE " GRAND STYLE." 5

that will warm the imagination •) To desire to see the excel-
lencies of each style united — to mingle the Dutch with the
Italian school, is to join contrarieties, which cannot subsist
together, and which destroy the efficacy of each other."

§ 5. We find, first, from this interesting passage, that the writer
considers the Dutch and Italian masters as severally represen-
tative of the low and high schools ; next, that he considers the
Dutch painters as excelling in a mechanical imitation, ** in
which the slowest intellect is always sure to succeed best;"
and, thirdly, that he considers the Italian painters as excelling
in a style which corresponds to that of imaginative poetry in
literature, and which has an exclusive right to be called the
grand style.

I wish that it were in my power entirely to concur with the
writer, and to enforce this opinion thus distinctly stated. I
have never been a zealous partisan of the Dutch School, and
should rejoice in claiming Reynolds's authority for the asser-
tion, that their manner was one " in which the slowest intellect
is always sure to succeed best." But before his authority can
be so claimed, we must observe exactly the meaning of the
assertion itself, and separate it from the company of some
others not perhaps so admissible. First, I say, we must
observe Reynolds's exact meaning, for (though the assertion
may at first appear singular) a man who uses accurate lan-^
guage is always more liable to misinterpretation than one who)
is careless in his expressions. We may assume that the latter)
means very nearly what we at first suppose him to mean, for/
words which have been uttered without thought may be re-\
ceived without examination. But when a writer or speaker
may be fairly supposed to have considered his expressions'
carefully, and, after having revolved a number of terms in his
mind, to have chosen the one which exactly means the thing hej
intends to say, we may be assured that what costs him time to \
select, will require from us time to understand, and that we '

* I have put this sentence in a parenthesis, because it is inconsistent
with the rest of the statement, and with the general teaching of the paper;
since that which " attends only to the invariable" cannot certainly adopt
" every ornament that will warm theimagination."

6 or TH£ RECEIVED 0PINI058 [PART IV.

\ shall do him wrong, unless we pause to reflect Low the word
' which he has actually employed differs from other words which
, it seems he might have employed. It thus constantly happens
'. that persons themselves unaccustomed to think clearly, or
speak correctly, misunderstand a logical and careful writer,
I and are actually in more danger of heing misled by language
' which is measured and precbe, than by that which is loose and
j inaccurate.

§ 6. Now, in the instance before us, a person not accustomed
to good writing might very rashly conclude, that when Rey-
nolds spoke of the Dutch School as one " in which the slowest
intellect was sure to succeed best,'* he meant to.say that every
successful Dutch painter was a fool. We have no right to take
his assertion in that sense. He says, the slowest intellect
We have no right to assume that he meant the weakest. For
it is true, that in order to succeed in the Dutch style, a man
has need of qualities of mind eminently deliberate and sus-
tained. He must be possessed of patience rather than of
power ; and must feel no weariness in contemplating the ex-
pression of .a single thought for several months together. As
opposed to the changeful energies of the imagination, these
mental characters may be properly spoken of as under the
general term—slowness of intellect. But it by no means fol-
lows that they are necessarily those of weak or foolish men.

We observe however, farther, that the imitation which Rey-
nolds supposes to be characteristic of the Dutch School is that
which gives to objects such relief that they seem real, and that
he then speaks of this art of realistic imitation as corresponding
to history in literature.

§ 7. Reynolds, therefore, seems io class these dull works of
the Dutch School under a general head, to which they are not
commonly referred — that of Historical painting ; while he
speaks of the works of the Italian School not as historical, but
as poetical painting. His next sentence will farther manifest
his meaning.

" The Italian attends only to the invariable, the great and
general ideas which are fixed and inherent in universal nature ;
the Dutch, on the contrary, to literal truth and minute exact-

VOL. III.] TOUCHING THE " GRAND STYLE.*' 7

ness in the detail, as I may say, of nature modified by accident.
The attention to these petty peculiarities is the very cause of
this naturalness so much admired in the Dutch pictures, which,
if we suppose it to be a beauty, is certainly of a lower order,
which ought to give place to a beauty of a superior kind, since
one cannot be obtained but by departing from the other.

** If my opinion was asked concerning the works of Michael
Angelo, whether they would receive any advantage from pos-
sessing this mechanical merit, I should not scruple to say, they
would not only receive no advantage, but would lose, in a great
measure, the effect which they now have on every mind sus-
ceptible of great and noble ideas. His works may be said to be
all genius and soul; and why should they be loaded with
heavy matter, which can only counteract his purpose by re-
tarding the progsess of the imagination V

Examining carefully this and the preceding passage, we find
the author's unmistakable meaning to be, that Dutch painting is
history ; attending to literal truth and " minute exactness in
the details of nature modified by accident." That Italian
painting is poetry t attending only to the invariable ; and that
works which attend only to the invariable are full of genius
and soul ; but that literal truth and exact detail are " heavy
matter which retards the progress of the imagination."

§ 8. This being then indisputably what Reynolds means to
tell us, let us think a little whether he is in all respects righ'
And first, as he compares his two kinds of painting to history
and poetry, let us se.e how poetry and history themselves differ,
in their use of variable and invai iable details. I am writing at
a window which commands a view of the head of the Lake of
Geneva ; and as I look up from my paper, to consider this
point, I see, beyond it, a blue breadth of softly moving water,
and the outline of the mountains above Chillon, bathed in mor-
ning mist. The first verses which naturally come into my
mind are —

" A thousand feet in depth below
The massy waters meet and flow ;
So far the fathom line was sent
From Cliilloii'a suow- white battlement"

8 OF THE RECEIVED OPINIONS [PART IV.

Let US see in what manner this poetical statement is distin-
guished from a historical one.

It is distinguished from a truly historical statement, first, in
heing simply false. The water under the castle of Chillon is
not a thousand feet deep, nor anything like it.* Herein, cer-
tainly, these lines fulfil Beynolds*s first requirement in poetry,
** that it should he inattentive to literal truth and minute exact-
ness in detail." In order, however, to make our comparison
more closely in other points, let us assume that what is stated
is indeed a fact, and that it was to he recorded, first historically,
and then poetically.

Historically stating it, then, we should say : " The lake was
sounded from the walls of the castle of Chillon, and found to be
a thousand feet deep."

Now, if Eeynolds he right in his idea of the difference be-
tween history and poetry, we shall find that Byron leaves out
of this statement certain tti»necessary details, and retains only
the invariable, — ^hat is to say, the points which the Lake of
Geneva and castle of Chillon have in common with all other
lakes and castles.

Let us hear, therefore.

" A thousand feet in depth below."

" Below ?" Here is, at all events, a word added (instead of
anything being taken away) ; invariable, certainly in the case
of lakes, but not absolutely necessary.

" The mossy waters meet and flow."

" Massy !" why massy ? Because deep water is heavy. The
word is a good word, but it is assuredly an added detail, and
expresses a character, not which th^ Lake of Geneva has in
common with all other lakes, but which it has in distinction
from those which are narrow or shallow.

* " MM. Mallet et Pictet, se trouvant snr le lac anprSs du ch&tesu de
Chillon, le 6 Aoiit, 1114, plongdrent d la profondenr de 812 pieds de un
thermom^tre," Ac, — ^Saubstjre, Voyages dans lea Alpea, chap. ii. § 33. It
appears from the next paragraph, that the thermometer was " au fond du la<\**

VOL. III.] TOUCHING THE " GRAND STYLE." 9

§ 9. "Meet and flow." WI17 meet and flow? Partly to
make up a rhyme ; partly to tell us that the waters are force-
ful as well as massy, and changeful as well as deep. Observe,
a farther addition of details, and of details more or less peculiar
to the spot, or, according to Eeynolds's definition, of " heavy
matter, retarding the progress of the imagination."

" So far the ffttliom line was sent"

Why fathom line ? All lines for sounding are not fathom
lines. If the lake was ever sounded from Ghillon, it was
probably sounded in metres, not fathoms. This is an addition
of another particular detail, in which the only compliance with
Reynolds's requirement is, that there is some chance of its
being an inaccurate one.

"From Chillon's snow-white battlement"

Why snow-white ? Because castle battlements are not usu-
ally snow-white. This is another added detail, and a detail
quite peculiar to Chillon, and therefore exactly the most strik-
ing word in the whole passage.

" Battlement !" why battlement ? Because all walls have
not battlements, and the addition of the term marks the castle
to be not merely a prison, but a fortress.

This is a curious result. Instead of finding, as we expected,
the poetry distinguished from the history by the omission of
details, we find it consist entirely in the addition of details ;
and instead of being characterized by regard only of the inva-
riable, we find its whole power to consist in the clear expres-
sion of what is singular and particular !

§ 10. The reader may pursue the investigation for himself in
other instances. He will find in every case that a poetical is
distinguished from a merely historicsd statement, not by being
more vague, but more specific, and it might, therefore, at first
appear that our author's comparison should be simply reversed,
and that the Dutch School should be called poetical, and the
Italian historical. Bat the term poetical does not appear very
applicable i6 the generality of Dutch painting; and a little
reflection will show us, that if the Italians represent only the
invariable, they cannot be properly compared even to histo-

I*

10 OF THE RECEIVED OPINIONS [PAUT IV.

rians. For that whicli is incapable of change has no history,
and records which state only the invariable need not be written,
and could not be read.

§ 11. It is evident, therefore, that our author has entangled
liimself in some gi*ave fallacy, by introducing this idea of inva-
riableness as forming a distinction between poetical and histori-
cal art. What the fallacy is, we shall discover as we proceed;
but as an invading army should not leave an untaken fortress
in its rear, we must not go on with our inquiry into the views
of Eeynolds until we have settled satisfactorily the question
already suggested to us, in wliat the essence of poetical treat-
ment really consists. For though, as we have seen, it certainly
involves the addition of specific details, it cannot be simply
that addition which turns the history into poetry. For it is
perfectly possible to add any number of details to a historical
statement, and to make it more prosaic with every added word.
As, for instance, " The lake was sounded out of a flat-bottomed
boat, near the crab tree at the corner of the kitchen-garden,
and was found to be a thousand feet nine inches deep, with a
muddy bottom." It thus appears that it is not the multiplica-
tion of details which constitutes poetry ; nor their subtraction
which constitutes history ; but that there must be something
either in the nature of the details themselves, or the method of
using them, which invests them with poetical power or histori-
cal propriety.

§ 12. It seems to me, and may seem to the reader, strange
that we should need to ask the question, " What is poetry V*
Here is a word we have been using all our lives, and, I sup-
pose, with a very distinct idea attached to it ; and when I am
now called upon to give a definition of this idea, I find myself
at a pause. What is more singular, I do not at present recollect
hearing the question often asked, though surely it is a very
natural one ; and I never recollect hearing it answered, or
even attempted to be answered. In general, people shelter
themselves under metaphors, and while we hear poetry de-
scribed as an utterance of the soul, an effusion of Divinity, or
voice of nature, or in other terms equally elevated and obscure,
we never attain anything like a definite explanation of the
character which actually distinguishes it from prose.

VOL. III.] TOUCmXG THE " GRAND STYLE.'* 11

§ 13. I come, after some embarrassment, to the conclusion,
that poetry is " the suggestion, by the imagination, of noble
grounds for the noble emotions." I mean, by the noble emo-
tions, those four principal sacred passions — Love, Veneration,
Admiration, and Joy (this latter especially, if unselfish) ; and
their opposites — Hatred, Indignation (or Scorn), Horror, and
Grief, — this last, when unselfish, becoming Compassion. These
passions in their various combinations constitute what is called
" poetical feeling,*' when they are felt on noble grounds, that
id, on great and true grounds. Indignation, for instance, is a
poetical feeling, if excited by serious injury ; but it is not a
poetical feeling if entertained on being cheated out of a small
sum of money. It is very possible the manner of the cheat
may have been such as to justify considerable indignation ; but
the feeling is nevertheless not poetical unless the grounds of it
be large as well as just. In like manner, energetic admiration
may be excited in certain minds by a display of fireworks, or a
street of handsome shops ; but the feeling is not poetical,
because the grounds of it are false, and therefore ignoble.
There is in reality nothing to deserve admiration either in the
firing of packets of gunpowder, or in the display of the stocks
of warehouses. But admiration excited by the budding of a
flower is a poetical feeling, because it is impossible that this
manifestation of spiritual power and vital beauty can ever be
enough admired.

§ 14. Farther, it is necessary to the existence or poetry that
the grounds of these feelings should hQfurnisJied by the imagi-
nation. Poetical feeling, that is to say, mere noble emotion, is
not poetry. It is happily inherent in all human nature deserv-
ing the name, and is found often to be purest in the least
sophisticated. But the power of assembling, by the help of the
imagination^ such images as will excite these feelings, is the
power of the poet or literally of the "Maker."*

* Take, for inBtanee, the beautiful stanza ia tlie " Affliction of Margaret:"

• I look for ghosts, but none -will force
Their way to me. Tis falsely said
That ever there was intercourse
Between the liying and the dead ;

12 OF THE RECEIVED OPINIONS [pART IV.

Now this power of exciting the emotions aepends of course
on the richness of the imagination, and on its choice of those
images which, in comhination, will be most effective, or, for the
particular work to be done, most fit. And it is altogether
impossible for a writer not endowed with invention to conceive
what tools a true poet will make use of, or in what way he will
apply them, or what unexpected results he will bring out by
them ; so that it is vain to say that the details of poetry ought
to possess, or ever do possess, an/ definite character. Gene-
rally speaking, poetry runs into finer and more delicate details
than prose ; but the details are not poetical because they are
more delicate, but because they are employed so as to bring

For, surely then, I bIiouU have sight
Of him I wait for, day and night.
With lovo and longing infinite."

This we call Poetry, because it is invented or maae Dy the writer, enter-
ing into the mind of a supposed person. Next, take an instance of the
actual feeling truly experienced and simply expressed by a real person.

" Nothing surprised me more than a T^oman of Argenti^re, whose cottage
I went into to ask for milk, as I came down from the glacier of Argenti^re,
in the month of March, 1764. An epidemic dysentery had prevailed in
the village, and, a few months before, had taken away from her, her father,
her husband, and her brothers, so that she was left alone, with three chil-
dren in the cradle. Her face had something noble in it, and its expression
bore the seal of a calm and profound sorrow. After having given me milk,
she asked me whence I came, and what I came there to do, so early in the
year. When she knew that I was of Geneva, she said to me, * she could
not believe that all Protestants were lost souls; that there were many
honest people among us, and that God was too good and too great to con-
demn all without distinction.* Tlien, after a moment of reflection, she
added, in shaking her head, * But, that which is very strange, is that of f>o
many who have gone away, none have ever returned. I,' she added, with
an expression of grief, * who have so mourned my husband and my brothers,
who have never ceased to think of them, who every night conjure them
with beseechings to tell me where they are, and in what state they are !
Ah, surely, if they lived anywhere, they would not leave me thus ! But,
perhaps/ she added, * I am not worthy of this kindness, perhaps the pure
and innocent spirits of these children,' and she looked at the cradle, * may
have their presence, and the joy which is denied to me.'* — SArssuRE,
Voyages dans les Alpes, chap. xxiv.

This we do not call Poetry, merely because it is not invented, but the
true utterance of a real person.

VOL. III.] TOUCHING THE " GRAND STYLE." 13

out an affecting result. For instance, no one but a true poet
would have thought of exciting our pity for a bereaved father
by describing his way of locking the door of his house :

" Perhaps to himself, at that moment he said.
The key I must take, for ray Ellen is dead ;
But of this in my ears not a word did he speak.
And he went to the chase with a tear on his cheek.**

In like manner, in painting, it is altogether impossible to say
beforehand what details a great painter may make poetical by
his use of them to excite noble emotions : and we shall, therc-
forer find presently that a painting is to be classed in the great
or inferior schools, not according to the kind of details which it
represents, but according to the uses for which it employs
them.

§ 15. It is only farther to be noticed, that infinite confusion
has been introduced into this subject by the careless and illogical
custom of opposing painting to poetry, instead of regarding
poetry as consisting in a noble use, whether of colors or words.
Painting is properly to be opposed to speaking or writivgy but
not to poetry. Both painting and speaking are methods of
expression. Poetry is the employment of either for the noblest
purposes.

§ 16. This question being thus far determined, we may pro-
ceed with our paper in the Idler.

" It is^ very difficult to determine the exact degree of enthu-
siasm that the arts of painting and poetry may admit. There
may, perhaps, be too great indulgence as well as too great a
restraint of imagination ; if the one produces incoherent mon-
sters, the other produces what is full as bad, lifeless insipidity.
An intimate knowledge of the passions, and good sense, but not
common sense, must at last determine its limits. It has been
thought, and I believe with reason, that Michael Angelo some-
times transgressed those limits ; and, I think, I have seen figures
of him of which it was very difficult to determine whether they
were in the highest degree sublime or extremely ridiculous.
Such faults may'be said to be the ebullitions of genius ; but at
least he had this merit, that be never was insipid, and what-

14 OF TUB RECEIVED OPINIONS [PART IV.

ever passion bis works may excite, they will always escape
contempt.

" What I have had under considiTation is the sublimest style,
particularly that of Michael Angelo, the Homer of painting.
Other kinds may admit of this naturalness, which of the lowest
kind is the chief merit ; but in painting, as in poetry, the high-
est style has the least of common nature.*'

From this passage we gather three important indications of
the supposed nature of the Great Style. That it is the work
of men in a state of enthusiasm. That it is like the writing of
Homer ; and that it has as little as possible of ** common
nature" in it.

§ 17. First, it is produced by men in a state of enthusiasm.
That is, by men who feel strong'i/ and nobly ; for we do not
call a strong feeling of envy, jealousy, or ambition, enthusiasm^
That is, therefore, by men who feel poetically. This much we
may admit, I think, with perfect safety. Great art is produced
by men who feel acutely and nobly ; and it is in some sort an
expression of this personal feeling. We can easily conceive that
there may be a suflSciently marked distinction between such
art, and that which is produced by men who do not feel at all,
but who reproduce, though ever so accurately, yet coldly,
like human mirrors, the scenes which pass before their
eyes.

§ 18. Secondly, Great Art is like the writing of Homer, and
this chiefly because it has little of " common naturp" in it.
We are not clearly informed what is meant by common nature
in this passage. Homer seems to describe a great deal of what
is common ; — cookery, for instance, very carefully in all its
processes. I suppose the passage in the Iliad which, on the
whole, has excited most admiration, is that which describes a
wife's sorrow at parting from her husband, and a child's fright
at its father's helmet ; and I hope, at least, the former feeling
may be considered " common nature." But the true greatness
of Homer's style is, doubtless, held by our author to consist in
his imaginations of things not only uncommon but impossible
(such as spirits in brazen armor, or monsters with heads of men
and bodies of beasts), and in his occasional delineations of the

VOL. ni.] TOUCHING THE ^ GRAND STYLE." 15

human character and form in their utmost, or heroic, strength
and beauty. We gather then on the whole, that a painter in
the Great Style must be enthusiastic, or foil of emotion, and
must paint the human form in its utmost strength and beauty,
and perhaps certain impossible forms besides, liable by persons
not in an equally enthusiastic state of mind to be looked upon
as in some degree absurd. This I presume to be Reynolds's
meaning, and to be all that he intends us to gather from his
comparison of the Great Stylo with the writings of Homer.
But if that comparison be a just one in all respects, surely two
other corollaries ought to be drawn from it, namely, — first, that
these Heroic or Impossible images are to be mingled with others
very unheroic and very possible ; and, secondly, that in the
representation of the Heroic or Impossible forms, the greatest
care must be taken in Jinishing the details, so that a painter
must not be satisfied with painting well the countenance and
the body of his hero, but ought to spend the greatest part of
his time (as Homer the greatest number of verses) in elaborating
the sculptured pattern on his shield.

§ 19. Let us, however, proceed with our paper.

" One may very safely recommend a little more enthusiasm
to the modern painters ; too much is certainly not the vice of
the present age. The Italians seem to have been continually
declining in this respect, from the time of Michael Angelo to
that of Carlo Maratti, and from thence to the very bathos of
insipidity to which they are now sunk, so that there is no need
of remarking, that where I mentioned the Italian painters in
opposition to the Dutch, I mean not the moderns, but the
heads of the old Roman and Bolognian schools ; nor did I mean
to include, in my idea of an Italian painter, the Venetian
school, whicJi may he said to he the Dutch part of the It Uan
g mtis, I have only to add a word of advice to the painters,
that, however excellent they may be in painting naturally, they
would not flatter themselves very much upon it; and to the
connoisseurs, that when they see a cat or a fiddle painted so
finely, that, as the phrase is, it looks as if you could take it up,
they would not for that reason immediately compare the painter
to Raffaelle and Michael Angelo."

16 OPINIONS TOUCHING THE " GRAND BTYLK." [PART IV.

In this passage there are four points chiefly to be remarked.
The first, that in the year 1759, the Italian painters were, in
our author's opinion, sunk in the very bathos of insipidity.
The second, that the Venetian painters, i. e. Titian, Tintoret,
and 'Veronese, are, in our author's opinion, to be classed with
the Dutch ; that is to say, are painters in a style ** in which the
slowest intellect is always sure to succeed best.'' Thirdly, that
painting naturally is not a difficult thing, nor one on which a
painter should pride himself. And, finally, that connoisseurs,
seeing a cat or a fiddle successfully painted, ought not therefore
immediately to compare the painter to Raphael or Michael
Angelo.

Yet Raphael painted fiddles very carefully in the foreground
of his St. Cecilia, — so carefully, that they quite look as if they
might be taken up. So carefully, that I never yet looked at
the picture without wishing that somebody tcould take them up,
and out of the way. And I am under a very strong persuasion
that Raphael did not think painting '< naturally" an easy thing.
It will be well to examine into this point a little ; and for the
present, with the reader's permission, we will pass over the first
two statements in this passage (touching the character of
Italian art in 1759, and of Venetian ai*t in general), and imme-
diately examine some of the evidence existing as to the real
dignity of " natural" painting — ^that is to say, of painting
carried to the point at which it reaches a deceptive appearance
of reality.

VOL. m.] OF BSALIZATION. 17

CHAPTER IL

OF REALIZATION.

§ 1. In the outset of this inquiry, the reader most thoroughly
understand that we are not now considering what is to be
painted, bat haw far it is to be painted. Not whether Ra-
phael does right in representing angels playing upon violins, or
whether Veronese does right in allowing cats and monkeys to
join the company of kings : but whether, supposing the sub-
jects rightly chosen, they ought on the canvass to look like
real angels with real violins, and substantial cats looking at
veritable kings ; or only like imaginary angels with soundless
violins, ideal cats, and unsubstantial kings.

Now, from the first moment when painting began to be a
subject of literary inquiry and general criticism, I cannot re-
member any writer, not professedly artistical, who has not,
more or less, in one part of his book or another, countenanced
the idea that the great end of art is to produce a deceptive
resemblance of reality. It may be, indeed, that we shall find
the writers, through many pages, explaining principles of ideal
beauty, and professing great delight in the evidences of ima-
gination. But whenever a picture is to be definitely described,
— whenever the writer desires to convey to others some im-
pression of an extraordinary excellence, all praise is wound up
with some such statements as these : '< It was so exquisitely
painted that you expected the figures to move and speak ; you
approached the flowers to enjoy their smell, and stretched
your hand towards the fruit which had fallen from the branch-
es. You shrunk back lest the sword of the warrior should
indeed descend, and turned away your head that you might
not witness the agonies of the expiring martyr !"

§ 2. lu a large number of instances, la^nguage such as this will

18 OF BXAUZATIOV. [PART IV.

be fonnd to be merely a clnmsj effort to eonvej to others a
sense of tbe admiration, of which the writer does not under-
stand the real cause in himself. A person is attracted to a
picture by the beauty of its color, interested by the liveliness
of its story, and touched by certain countenances or details
which remind him of friends whom he loved, or scenes in
which he delighted. He naturally supposes that what gives
him so much pleasure must be a notable example of the paint-
er's skill ; but he is ashamed to confess, or perhaps does not
know, that he is so much a child as to be fond of bright colors
and amusing incidents; and he is quite unconscious of the
associations which have so secret and inevitable a power over
his heart. He casts about for the cause of his delight, and can
discover no other than that he thought the picture like reality.

§ 3. In another, perhaps a still larger number of cases, such
language will be found to be that of simple ignorance — the ig-
norance of persons whose position in life compels them to speak
of art, without having any real enjoyment of it. It is inexcus-
ably required from people of the world, that they should see
merit in Claudes and Titians ; and the only merit which many
persons can either see or conceive in them is, that they must
be " like nature."

§ 4. In other cases, the deceptive power of the art is really felt
to be a source of interest and amusement. This is the case
with a large number of the collectors of Dutch pictures. They
enjoy seeing what is flat made to look round, exactly as a
child enjoys a trick of legerdemain ; they rejoice in flies which
the spectator vainly attempts to brush away, and in dew
which he endeavors to dry by putting the picture in the sun.
They take it for the greatest compliment to their treasures
that they should be mistaken for windows; and think the
parting of Abraham and Hagar adequately represented, if
Hagar seems to be really crying.

It is against critics and connoisseurs of this latter stamp (of
whom, in the year 1759, the juries of art were for the most
part composed) that the essay of Reynolds, which we have
been examining, was justly directed. But Reynolds had not
sufficiently considered that neither the men of this class, nor of
the two other classes above described, constitute the entire

VOL. III.] OF REALIZATION. 19

body of those who praise Art for its realization ; and that the
holdinp; of this apparently shallow and vulgar opinion cannot,
in all cases, be attributed to the want either of penetration,
sincerity, or sense. The collectors of Gerard Dows and Hob-
bimas may be passed by with a smile ; and the affectations of
Walpole and simplicities of Yasari dismissed with contempt
or with compassion. But very different men from these have
held precisely the same language ; and, one amongst the rest,
whose authority is absolutely, and in all points, overwhelming.
§ 5. There was probably never a period in which the in-
fluence of art over the minds of men seemed to depend less on
its merely imitative power, than the close of the thirteenth cen-
tury. No painting or sculpture at that time reached more than
a rude resemblance of reality. Its despised perspective, imper-
fect chiaroscuro, and unrestrained flights of fantastic imagina-
tion, separated the artist's work from nature by an interval
which there was no attempt to disguise, and little to diminish.
And yet, at this very period, the greatest poet of that, or per-
haps of any other age, and the attached friend of its greatest
painter, who must over and over again have held full and free
conversation with him respecting the objects of his art, speaks
in the following terms of painting, supposed to be carried to
its highest perfection : —

** Qual di pennel fa maestro, e di stile

Che ritraesse V ombre, e i tratti, ch' ivi
Mirnr farieno uno ingegno sottile.
Morti li morti, e i vivi parean vivi :
Non vide me* di mc, chi vide il vero.
Quant' io calcai, fin che chinato givL"

Dante, Purgatorio, caato ziL L 64.

" What master of the pencil, or the style,
Had traced the shades and lines that might have made
The subtlest workman wonder ? Dead, the dead,
The living seemed alive ; with clearer view
His eye beheld not, who beheld the truth.
Than mine what I did tread on, while I went,
Low bending.' Caret.

Dante has here clearly no other idea of the highest art than

20 OF REALIZATION. [PABT IV.

that it should hring back, as in a mirror or Tision, the aspect
of things passed or absent. The scenes of which he speaks
are, on the pavement, for ever represented by angelic power,
so that the souls which traverse this circle of the rock may see
them, as if the years of the world had been rolled back, and
they again stood beside the actors in the moment of action.
Nor do I think that Dante's authority is absolutely necessary
to compel us to admit that such art as this might indeed be the
highest possible. Whatever delight we may have been in the
habit of taking in pictures, if it were but truly offered to us, to
remove at our will the canvass from the frame, and in lieu of it
to behold, fixed for ever, the image of some of those mighty
scenes which it has been our way to make mere themes for the
artist's fancy ; if, for instance, we could again behold the Mag-
dalene receiving her pardon at Christ's feet, or the disciples
sitting with Him at the table of Emmaus ; and this not feebly
nor fancifully, but as if some silver mirror, that had leaned
against the wall of the chamber, had been miraculously com-
manded to retain for ever the colors that had flashed upon it
for an instant, — would we not part with our picture — Titian's
or Veronese's though it might be ?

§ 6. Yes, the reader answers, in the instance of such scenes
as these, but not if the scene represented were uninteresting.
Not, indeed, if it were utterly vulgar or painful j but we are
not yet certain that the art which represents what is vulgar or
painful is itself of much value ; and with respect to the art
whose aim is beauty, even of an inferior order, it seems that
Dante's idea of its perfection has still much evidence in its
favor. For among persons of native good sense, and courage
enough to speak their minds, we shall often find a considerable
degree of doubt as to the use of art, in consequence of their
habitual comparison of it with reality. " What is the use, to
me, of the painted landscape ?" they will ask : " I see more
beautiful and perfect landscapes every day of my life in my
forenoon walk." "What is the use, to me, of the painted
Qi^^y of hero or beauty 1 I can see a stamp of highe» hero-
ism, and light of purer beauty, on the faces around me, utterly
inexpressible by the highest human skill." Now, it is evident
that to persons of this temper the only valuable pictures

VOL. III.] OF realizAtioit. • 21

would indeed be mtrrors, reflecting permanently the images of
the things in which thej took delight, and of the faces that thej
loved. "Nay," but the reader interrupts, (if he is of the
Idealist school) "I deny that more beautiful things are to be
seen in nature than in art ; on the contrary, everything in
nature is faulty, and art represents nature as perfected." Be
it so. Must, therefore, this perfected nature be imperfectly
represented ? Is it absolutely required of the painter, who has
conceived perfection, that he should so paint it as to look only
like a picture ? Or is not Dante's view of the matter right
even here, and would it not be well that the perfect conception
of Pallas should be so given as to look like Pallas herself*
rather than merely like the picture of Pallas ?

§ 7. It is not easy for us to answer this question rightly,
owing to the difficulty of imagining any art which should reach
the perfection supposed. Our actual powers of imitation are so
feeble that wherever deception is attempted, a subject of a com-
paratively low or confined order must be chosen I do not
enter at present into the inquiry how far the powers of imita-
tion extend ; but assuredly up to the present period they have
been so limited that it is hardly possible for us to conceive a
deceptive art embracing a high range of subject. But let the
reader make the effort, and consider seriously what he would
give at any moment to have the power of arresting the fairest
scenes, those which so often rise before him only to vanish ; to
stay the cloud in its fading, the leaf in its trembling, and the
shadows in their changing ; to bid the fitful foam be fixed upon
the river, and the ripples be everlasting upon the lake ; and
then to bear away with him no darkened or feeble sun-stain
(though even that is beautiful), but a counterfeit which should
seem no counterfeit — the true and perfect image of life indeed.
Or rather (for the full majesty of such a power is not thus
sufficiently expressed) let him consider that it would be in effect
nothing else than a capacity of transporting himself at any
moment into any scene — a gift as great as can be possessed by
a disembodied spirit : and suppose, also, this necromancy
embracing not only the present but the past, and enabling us
seemingly to enter, into the very bodily presence of men long
since gathered to the dust ; to behold them in act as they lived,

22 OF RXALUATION. [pART IV.

but— with greater privilege than ever was granted to the com-
panions of those transient acts of life, — ^to see them fastened at
our will in the gesture and expressioik of an instant, and stayed,
on the eve of some great deed, in immortality of burning
purpose. Conceive, so far as it is possible, such power as this,
and then say whether the art which conferred it i^ to be spoken
lightly off or whether we should not rather reverence, as half
divine, a gift which would go so far as to raise us into the rank,
and invest us with the felicities, of angels !

Yet such would imitative art be in its perfection. Not by any
means an easy thing, as Heynolds supposes it. Far from being
easy, it is so utterly beyond all human power that we have
difficulty even in conceiving its nature or results — the best art
we as yet possess comes so far short of it.

§ 8. But we must not rashly come to the conclusion that such
art would, indeed, be the highe t possible. There is much to
be considered hereafter on the other side ; the only conclusion
we are as yet warranted in forming is, that Reynolds had no
right to speak lightly or contemptuously of imitative art ; that
in fact, when he did so, he had not conceived its entire nature,
but was thinking of some vulgar conditions of it, which were
the only ones known to him, and that, therefore, his whole
endeavor to explain the difference between great and mean art
has been disappointed ; that he has involved himself in a
crowd of theories, whose issue he had not foreseen, and commit-
ted himself to conclusions which he never intei]ded. There is
an instinctive consciousness in his own mind of the difference
between high and low art ; but he is utterly incapable of
explaining it, and every effort which he makes to do so involves
him in unexpected fallacy and absurdity. It is not true that
Poetry does not concern herself with minute details. It is not
true that high art seeks only the Invariable. It is not true
that imitative art is an easy thing. It is not true that the
faithful rendering of nature is an employment in which " the
slowest intellect is likely to succeed best." All these successive
assertions are utterly false and untenable, while the plain^truth,
a truth lying at the very door, has all the while escaped him, —
that which was incidentally stated in the preceding chapter,—
namely, that the difference between gieat and mean art lies, not

VOL. III.] OF REALIZATION. 23

in definable methods of handling, or styles of representation, or
choices of subjects, but wholly in the nobleness of the end to
which the effort of the painter is addressed. We cannot
say that a painter is great because he paints boldly, or paints
delicately ; because he generalizes or particularizes ; because
he loves detail, or because he disdains it. He is great if,
by any of these means, he has laid open noble truths, or
aroused noble emotions. It does not matter whether he paint
the petal of a rose, or the chasms of a precipice, so that Love
and Admiration attend him as he labors, and wait for ever upon
his work. It does not matter whether he toil for months upon
a few inches of his canvass, or cover a palace front witl> color
in a day, so only that it be with a solemn purpose that he has
filled his heart with patience, or urged his hand to haste. And
it does not matter whether he seek for his subjects among
peasants or nobles, among the heroic or the simple, in courts or
in fields, so only that he behold all things with a thirst for
beauty, and a hatred of meanness and vice. There are, indeed,
certain methods of representation which are usually adopted by
the most active minds, and certain characters of subject usually
delighted in by the noblest hearts ; but it is quite possible,
quite easy, to adopt the manner of painting without sharing the
activity of mind, and to imitate the choice of subject without
possessing the nobility of spirit ; while, on the other hand, it is
altogether impossible to foretell on what strange objects the
strength of a great man will sometimes be concentrated, or by
what strange means he will sometimes express himself. So
that true criticism of art never can consist in the mere applica-
tion of rules ; it can be just only when it is founded on quick
sympathy with the innumerable instincts and changeful efforts
of human nature, chastened and guided by unchanging love of
all things that God has created to be beautiful, and pronounced
to be good

CHAPTEB ni.

OF THE BEAL NATURE OF GREATNESS OF STTLE,

§ 1. I DOUBT not that the reader was ill-satisfied with the
conclusion arrived at in the last chapter. That " great art" is
art which represents what is beautiful and good, may not seem
a very profound discovery ; and the main question may be
thought to have been all the time lost sight of, namely, "What
is beautiful, and what is good V* No ; those are not the main,
at least not the first questions ; on the contrary, our subject
becomes at once opened and simplified as soon as we have left
those the onJi/ questions. For observe, our present task,
according to our old plan, is merely to investigate the relative
degrees of the hcautiful in the art of diflPercnt masters ; and it
is an encouragement to bo convinced, first of all, that what is
lovely will also be great, and what is pleasing, noble. Nor is
the conclusion so much a matter of course as it at first appears,
for, surprising as the statement may seem, all the confusion
into which Reynolds has plunged both himself and his readers,
in the essay we have been examining, results primarily from a
doubt in his own mind os to the esristeffce of beauty at all. In
the next paper I alluded to. No. 82. (which needs not, however,
to bo examined at so great length), he calmly attributes the
whole influence of beauty to custom, saying, that "he has.no
doubt, if we were more used to deformity than to beauty,
deformity would then lose the idea now annexed to it, and take
that of beauty ; as if tlie wliole world shall agree that Yes and
No should change their meanings. Yes would then deny, and
No would affirm !"

§ 2. The world docs, indeed, succeed — oftener than is, per-
haps, altogether well for the world — in making Yes mean No,

VOL. III.] GREATNESS OF STYLE. 26

and No mean Yes.* But the world has never succeeded, nor
ever will, in making itself delight in black clouds more than in
blue sky, or love the dark earth better than the rose that grows
from it. Happily for mankind, beauty and ugliness are as
positive in their nature as physical pain and pleasure, as light
and darkness, or as life and death ; and, though they may be
denied or misunderstood in many fantastic ways, the most sub-
tle reasoner will at last find that color and sweetness are still
attractive to him, and that no logic will enable him to think the
rainbow sombre, or the violet scentless. But the theory that
beauty was merely a result of custom was very common in
Johnson's time. Goldsmith has, I think, expressed it with
more force and wit than any other writer, in various passages
of the Citizen of the World. And it was, indeed, a curious
retribution of the folly of the world of art, which for some
three centuries had given itself recklessly to the pursuit of
beauty, that at last it should be led to deny the very existence
of yfhaX it had so morbidly and passionately sought. It was as
if a child should leave its home to pursue the rainbow, and then,
breathless and hopeless, 46clare that it did not exist. Nor is
the lesson less useful which may be gained in observing the
adoption of such a theory by Reynolds himself. It shows how
completely an artist may be unconscious of the principles of his
own work, and how he may be led by instinct to do all that is
right, while he is misled by false logic to sat/ all that is wrong.
For nearly every word that Reynolds wrote was contrary
to his own practice ; he seems to have been bom to teach all
error by his precept, and all excellence by his example ; ho
enforced with his lips generalization and idealism, while with
his pencil he was tracing the patterns of the dresses of the
belles of his day ; he exhorted his pupils to attend only to the
invariable, while he himself was occupied in distinguishing
every variation of womanly temper ; and he denied the exist-
ence of the beautiful, at the same instant that he arrested it as
it passed, and perpetuated it for ever.

§ 3. But we must not quit the subject here. However incon-
sistently or dimly expressed, there is, indeed, some truth in
that commonly accepted distinction between high and low art.
* Del " no,'* per 11 danar, vi « si** far ita.
2

20 OF THE REAL KATURE OF [fART IV.

That a thing should bo beautiful is not enough ; there is, as we
said in the outset, a higher and lower range of beauty, and
some ground for separating into various and unequal ranks
painters who have, nevertheless, each in his several way,
represented something that was beautiful or good.

Nor, if wo would, can we get rid of this conviction. We
have at all times some instinctive sense that the function of one
painter is greater than that of another, even supposing each
eqtlally successful in his own way ; and we feel that, if it were
possible to conquer prejudice, and do away with the iniquities
of personal feeling, and the insufHciencies of limited knowledge,
we should all agree in this estimate, and be able to place each
painter in his right rank, measuring them by a true scale of
nobleness. We feel that the men in the higher classes of the
scale would be, in the full sense of the word. Great— ^men whom
one would give much to see the faces of but for an instant ; and
that those in the lower classes of the scale (though none were
admitted but who had true merit of some kind) would be very
small men, not greatly exciting either reverence or curiosity.
And with this fixed instinct in our minds, we permit our teach-
ers daily to exhort their pupils to the cultivation of " great art"
— ^neither they nor we having any very clear notion as to what
the greatness consists in : but sometimes inclining to think it
must depend on the space of the canvass, and that art on a
scale of 6 feet by 10 is something spiritually separated from
that on a scalr of 3 feet by 5 ; — sometimes holding it to consist
iib painting the nude body, rather than the body decently
clothed ; — sometimes being convinced that it is connected with
tl^ study of past history, and that the art is only great which
represents what the painter never saw, and about which he
knows nothing ; — and sometimes being firmly persuaded that it
consists in generally finding fault with, and endeavoring to
mend, whatsoever the Divine Wisdom has made. All which
various errors, having yet some motes and atoms of truth in
the make of each of them, deserve some attentive analysis, for
they come under that general law, — that " the corruption of
the best is the worst." There are not v)orse errors going than
these four; and yet the truth they contain, and the instinct
which urges many to preach them, are at the root of all healthy

VOL. III.

GREATNESS OF STYLE. 27

growth in art. We ruin one young painter after another by
tdling him to follow great art, without knowing, ourselves,
what greatness is ; and yet the feeling that it verily is some-
thing, and that there are depths and breadths, shallows and
narrows, in the matter, is all that we have to look to, if we
would ever make our art serviceable to ourselves or others. To
follow art for the sake of being a great man, and therefore to
cast about continually for some means of achieving position or
attracting admiration, is the surest way of ending in total
extinction. And yet it is only by honest reverence for art
itself, and by great self-respect in the practice of it, that it can
be rescued from dilettantism, raised to approved honorableness,
and brought to the proper work it has to accomplish in the
service of man.

§ 4. Let us therefore look into the facts of the thing, not with
any metaphysical, or otherwise vain and troublesome effort at
acuteness, but in a plain way; for the facts themselves are
plain enough, and may be plainly stated, only the difficulty is
that out of these facts, right and left, the different forms of
misapprehension branch into grievous complexity, and branch
so far and wide, that if once we try to follow them, they will .
lead us quite from our mark into other separate, though not
less interesting discussions. The best way will be, therefore,
I think, to sketch out at once in this chapter, the different
characters which really constitute '* greatness" of style, and to
indicate the principal directions of the outbranching misappre-
hensions of them ; then, in the succeeding chapters, to take
up in succession those which need more talk about them,
and follow out at leisure whatever inquiries they may sug-
gest.

§ 5. I. Choice of Noble Subject. — Greatness of style con-
sists, then : first, in the habitual choice of subjects of thought
which involve wide interests and profound passions, as opposed
to those which involve narrow interests and slight passions.
The style is greater or less in exact proportion to the nobleness
of the interests and passions involved in the subject. The
habitual choice of sacred subjects, such as the Nativity, Trans-
figuration, Crucifixion (if the choice be sincere), implies that
the painter has a natural disposition to dwell on the higliest

28 OP THE REAL NATURE OF [pART TV.

thoughts of which ham.anity is capable ; it constitutes him so
far forth a painter of the highest order, as, for instance, Leo-
nardo, in his painting of the Last Supper : he who delights in
representing the acts or meditations of great men, as, for
instance, Raphael painting the School of Athens, is, so far
forth, a painter of the second order : he who represents the
passions and events of ordinary life, of the third. And in this
ordinary life, he who represents deep thoughts and sorrows, as, •
for instance, Hunt, in his Glaudio and Isabella, and such other
works, is of the highest rank in his sphere ; and he who repre-
sents the slight malignities and passions of the drawing-room,
as, for instance, Leslie, of the second rank : he who represents
the sports of boys or simplicities of clowns, as Webster or
Teniers, of the third rank ; and he who represents brutalities
and vices (for delight in them, and not for rebuke of them), of
no rank at all, or rather of a negative rank, holding a certain
order in the abyss.

§ 6. The reader will, I hope, understand how much import-
ance is to be attached to the sentence in the first parenthesis,
" if the choice be sincere ;" for choice of subject is, of course,
only available as a criterion of the rank of the painter, when it
is made from the heart. Indeed, in the lower orders' of paifit-
ing, the choice is always made from such heart as the painter
has ; for his selection of the brawls of peasants or sports of
children can, of course, proceed only from the fact that he has
more sympathy with such brawls or pastimes than with nobler
subjects. But the choice of the higher kind of subjects is often
insincere ; and may, therefore, afford no real criterion of the
painter's rank. The greater number of men who have lately
painted religious or heroic subjects have done so in mere ambi-
tion, because they had been taught that it was a good thing to
be a " high art" painter ; and the fact is that, in nine cases out
of ten, the so-called historical or " high art" painter is a person
infinitely inferior to the painter of flowers or still life. He is,
in modem times, nearly always a man who has great vanity
without pictorial capacity, and differs from the landscape or
fruit painter merely in misunderstanding and over-estimating
his own powers. He mistakes his vanity for inspiration, his
ambition for greatness of soul, and takes pleasure in what he

VOL. III.] GREATNESS OF 8TYUS. 29

calls " the ideal," merely because he lias neither humility nor
capacity enough to comprehend the real.

§ 7. But also observe, it is not enough even that the choice
be sincere. It must also be wise. It happens very often that
a man of weak intellect, sincerely desiring to do what is good
and useful, will devote himself to high art subjects because he
thinks them the only ones on which time and toil can be use-
fully spent, or, sometimes, because they are really the only
ones he has pleasure in contemplating. But not having intel-
lect enough to enter into the minds of truly great men, or to
imagine great events as they really happened, he cannot
become a great painter ; he degrades the subjects he intended
to honor, and his work is more utterly thrown away, and his
rank as an artist in reality lower, than if he had devoted him-
self to the imitation of the simplest objects of natural history.
The works of Overbeck are a most notable instance of this
form of error.

§ 8. It must also be remembered, that in nearly all the great
periods of art the choice of subject has not been left to the
painter. His employer, — abbot, baron, or monarch, — deter-
mined for him whether he should earn his bread by making
cloisters bright with choiri^ of saints, painting coats of arms on
leaves of romances, or decorating presence-chambers with
complimentary mythology ; and his own personal feelings are /
ascertainable only by watching, in the themes assigned to him,
what are the points in which he seems to take most pleasure, i
Thus, in the prolonged ranges of varied subjects with which j
Benozzo Gozzoli decorated the cloisters of Pisa, it is easy to '
see that love of simple domestic incident, sweet landscape, and
glittering ornament, prevails slightly over the solemn elements
of religions feeling, which, nevertheless, the spirit of the age '
instilled into him in such measure as to form a very lovely and
noble mind, though still one of the second order. In the work
of Orcagna, an intense solemnity and energy in the sublimest
groups of his figures, fading away as he touches inferior sub-
jects, indicates that his home was among the archangels, and
his rank among the first of the sons of men : while Corregio,
in the sidelong grace, artificial smiles, and purple languors of
his saints, indicates the inferior instinct which would have

30 OF THE RBAL NATURE OF [pART IV.

guided his choice in quite other directions, had it not been for
the fashion of the age, and the need of the day.

§ 9. It will follow, of course, from the above considerations,
that the choice which characterises the school of high art is
seen as much in the treatment of a subject as in its selection,
and that the expression of the thoughts of the persons repre-
sented will alwajs be the first thing considered by the painter
who worthily enters that highest school. For the artist who
sincerely chooses the noblest subject will also choose chiefly to
represent what makes that subject noble, namely, the various
heroism or other noble emotions of the persons represented.
. If, instead of this, the artist seeks only to make his picture
agreeable by the composition of its masses and colors, or by
any other merely pictorial merit, as fine drawing of limbs, it is
evident, not only that any other subject would have answered
his purpose as well, but that he is unfit to approach the subject
he has chosen, because ho cannot enter into its deepest mean-
ing, and therefore cannot in reality have chosen it for that
meaning. Nevertheless, while the expression is always to be
the first thing considered, all other merits must be added to
the utmost of the painter's power ; for until he can both color
and draw beautifully he has no business to consider himself a
painter at all, far less to attempt the noblest subjects of paint-
ing ; and, when he has once possessed himself of these powers,
he will naturally and fitly employ them to deepen and perfect
the impression made by the sentiment of his subject.

The perfect unison of expression, as the painter's main pur-
pose, with the full and natural exertion of his pictorial power
in the details of the work, is found only in the old Pre-
Raphaelite periods, and in the modern Pre-Raphaelite school.
In the works of Giotlo, Angelico, Orcagna, John Bellini, and
one or two more, these two conditions of high art are entirely
fulfilled, so far as the knowledge of those days enabled them
to be fulfilled ; atid' in the modern Pre-Raphaelite school they
are fulfilled nearly to the uttermost. Hunt's Light of the World
is, I believe, the most perfect instance of expressional purpose
with technical power, which the world has yet produced.

§ 10. Now in the Post Raphaelite period of ancient art, and in
the spurious high art of modern times, two broad forms of error

VOL. III.] GREATNESS OF STYLE. 31

divide the schools ; the one consisting in (A) the superseding
of expression by technical excellence, and the other in (B) tho
superseding of technical excellence hj expression.

(A). Superseding expression by technical excellence.— This
takes place most frankly, and therefore most innocently, in tho
work of the Venetians. They very nearly ignore expression
altogether, directing their aim exclusively to the rendering of
external truths of color and form. Paul Veronese will make
the Magdalene wash the feet of Christ with a countenance
as absolutely unmoved as that of any ordinary servant bringing
a ewer to her master, and will introduce the supper at Emmaus
as a background to the portraits of two children playing with a
dog. Of the wrongness or Tightness of such a proceeding we
shall reason in another place ; at present we have to note it
merely as displacing the Venetian work from the highest or
expressional rank of art. But the error is generally made in a
more subtle and dangerous way. The artist deceives himself
into the idea that he is doing all he can to elevate his subject
by treating it under rules of art, introducing into it accurate
science, and collecting for it the beauties of (so-called) ideal
form ; whereas he may, in reality, be all the while sacrificing
his subject to his own vanity or pleasure, and losing truth,
nobleness, and impressiveness for the sake of delightful lines or
creditable pedantries.

§ 11. (B). Superseding technical excellence by expression. —
This is usually done under the influence of another kind of
vanity. The artist desires that men should think he has an
elevated soul, affects to despise the ordinary excellence of art,
contemplates with separated egotism the course of his own
imaginations or sensations, and refuses to look at the real facts
round about him, in order that he may adore at leisure the
shadow of himself. He lives in an element of what he calls
tender emotions and lofty aspirations ; which are, in fact,
ttotWng more than very ordinary weaknesses or instincts, con-
templated through a mist of pride. A large range of modem
German art comes under this head.

A more interesting and respectable form of this error is fallen
into by some truly earnest men, who, finding their powers not
adequate to the attainment of great artistical excellence, but

32 OF THE REAL NATURE OF [pART IV.

adequate to rendering, up to a certain point, the exptession of
the human countenance, devote themselves to that object alone,
abandoning effort in other directions, and executing the acces-
saries of their pictures feeblj or carelessly. With these are
associated another group of philosophical painters, who suppose
the artistical merits of other parts adverse to the expression, as
drawing the spectator's attention away from it, and who paint
in grey color, and imperfect light and shade, by way of enforcing
the purity of their conceptions. Both these classes of conscien-
tious but narrow-minded artists labor under the same grievous
mistake of imagining that wilful fallacy can ever be either par-
donable or helpful. They forget that color, if used at all, must
be either true or false, and that what they call chastity, dignity,
and reserve, is, to the eye of any person accustomed to nature,
pure, bold, and impertinent falsehood. It does not, in the eyes
of any soundly minded man, exalt the expression of a female
face that the cheeks should be painted of the color of clay, nor
does it in the least enhance his reverence for a saint to find the
scenery around him deprived, by his presence, of sunshine. It
is an important consolation, however, to reflect that no artist ever
fell into any of these last three errors (under head B.) who had
really the capacity of becoming a great painter. No man ever
despised color who could produce it ; and the error of these
sentimentalists and philosophers is not so much in the choice
of their manner of painting, as in supposing themselves capable
of painting at all. Some of them might have made efficient
sculptors, but the greater number had their mission in some
other sphere than that of art, and would have found, in works
of practical charity, better employment for their gentleness and
sentimentalism, than in denying to human beauty its color,
and to natural scenery its light; in depriving heaven of its
blue, and earth of its bloom, valor of its- glow, and modesty of
its blush.

§ 12. II. Love op Beauty. — The second characteristic of
the great school of art is, that it introduces in the conception
of its subject as much beauty as is possible, consistently with
truth.*

* As here, for the first time, I am obliged to use the terms Truth and
Beauty in a kind of opposition, I must therefore stop for a moment to

VOL. III.] OAEATNESS OF 8TTLE, 33

For instance, in any subject consisting of a number of
figures, it will make as manj of those figures beautiful as the

Btato clearly the rclatioa of these two qualities of art; and to protest
against the vulgar and foolish habit of confasing truth and beauty with
each other. People with shallow powers of thought^ desiring to flatter
themselves with the sensation of having attained profundity, are continu-
ally doing the most serious mischief by introducing confusion into plain
matters, and then valuing themselves on being confounded. Nothing is
more conmion than to hear people who desire to be thought philosophical,
declare that "beauty is truth," and "truth is beauty." I would moat
earnestly beg every sensible person who hears such an assertion made, to
nip the germinating philosopher in his ambiguous bud ; and beg him, if
he really believes his own assertion, never thencefo'rward to use two
words for the same thing. The fact is, truth and beauty are entirely dis- 1
tinct, though often related, things. One is a property of statements, the \
other of objects. The statement that " two and two make four " is true, *
but it is neither beautiful nor ugly, for it is invisible ; a rose is lovely, but
it is neither true nor false, for it is silent That which shows nothing
cannot be fair, and that which asserts nothing cannot be false. Even the
ordinary use of the words false and true as applied to artificial and real
tilings, is inaccurate. An artificial rose is not a " false " rose, it is not a
rose at aU. The falseness is in the person who states, or induces the belief,
that it is a rose.

Now, therefore, in things concerning art, the words true and false are
only to be rightly used while the picture is considered as a statement of
facts. The painter asserts that this which he has painted is the form of a
dog, a man, or a tree. If it be not the form of a dog, a man, or a tree, the
painter's statement is false ; and therefore we justly speak of a false line,
or false colour ; not that any line or colour can in themselves be false, but
they become so when they convey a statement that they resemble some-
thing which they do not resemble. But the beauty of the lines or colours
is wholly independent of any such statement They may be beautiful
lines, though quite inaccurate, and ugly lines though quite faithfiiL A
picture may be frightfully ngly, which represents with fidelity some base
circumstance of daily life; and a painted window may be exquisitely
beautiful, which represents men with eagles' faces, and dogs with blue
heads and crimson tails (though, by the .way, this is not in the strict sense
/(dse art, as we shall see hereafter, inasmuch as it means no assertion
that men ever h4xd eagles' faces). If this were not so, it would be impos-
sible to sacrifice truth to beauty ; for to attain the one would always be to
attain the other. But, unfortunately, this sacrifice is exceedingly possible,
and it is chiefly this which characterises the false schools of high art, s>
for as high art consists in the pursuit of beauty. For although truth and
beauty are independent of each other, it does not follow that we are at
liberty to pursue whichever we please. They are indeed separable, but it

2*

34 OF THE BKAL NATURE OF [PABT IV.

faith^l representation of humanity will admit. It will not
deny the facts of ugliness or decrepitude, or relative inferior-
ity and' superiority of feature as necessarily manifested in a
crowd, but it will, so far as it is in its power, seek for and
dwell upon the fairest forms, and in all things insist on the
beauty that is in them, not on the ugliness. In this respect,
schools of art become higher in exact proportion to the degree
in which they apprehend and love the beautiful. Thus, An-

j gelico, intensely loving all spiritual beauty, will be of the
highest rank; and Paul Veronese and Gorreggio, intensely

. loving physical and corporeal beauty, of the second rank ; and
Albert Durer, Cubens, and in general the Northern artists,
apparently insensible to beauty, and caring only for truth,
whether shapely or not, of the third rank ; and Teniers and
Salvator, Caravaggio, and other such worshippers of the de-
praved, of no rank, or, as we said before, of a certain order in
the abyss

§ 13. The corruption of the schools of high art, so far as
this particular quality is concerned, consists in the sacrifice of
tnith to beauty. Great art dwells on all that is beautiful ; but
false art omits or changes all that is ugly. Great art accepts
Nature as she is, but directs the eyes and thoughts to what is
most perfect in her ; false art saves itself the trouble of direc-
tion by removing or altering whatever it thinks objectionable.

' The evil results of which proceeding are twofold.
S :4 Erii flrat. First. That beauty deprived of its proper foils
the^tniT/irS ^^^ adjuncts ccases to be enjoyed as beauty, just
of beauty. ^g ijgiit; deprived of all shadow ceases to be en-
joyed as liglit. A white canvass cannot produce an ef-
fect of sunshine ; the painter must darken it in some places

• before he can make it look luminous in others ; nor can an
uninterrupted succession of beauty produce the true effect of
beauty ; it must be foiled by inferiority before its own power
can be developed. Nature has for the most part mingled her
inferior and nobler elements as she mingles sunshine with

is wrong to separate them ; they are to be sought together in the onler of
their worthiness ; that is to say, truth first, and beauty afterwards. High
art difFere from low art in possessing an excess of beauty in addition to its
truth, not in possessing an excess of beauty inconsistent with truth.

VOL. III.] GREATNESS OF STTLE. 35

shade, giving due use and influence to both, and the painter
who chooses to remove the shadow, perishes in the burning
desert he has created. The truly high and beautiful art \
of Angelico is continually refreshed and strengthened by \
his frank portraiture of the most ordinary features of his j
brother monks, and of the recorded peculiarities of ungainly
Scinctity ; but the modern German and Baphaelesque schools j
lose all honour and nobleness in barber-like admiration of (
handsome faces, and have, in . fact, no real faith except in J
straight noses and curled hair. Paul Veronese opposes the i
dwarf to the soldier, and the negress to the queen ; Shakspere (
places Caliban beside Miranda, and Autolycus beside Perdita ; /
but the vulgar idealist withdraws his beauty to the safety of 1
the saloon, and his innocence to the iSeclusion of the cloister ; \
he pretends that he does this in delicacy of choice and purity |
of sentiment, while in truth he has neither courage to fr6nt the
monster, nor wit enough to furnish the knave.

It*is only by the habit of representing faith- 1^5^ evIi aw-
fully all things, that we can truly, learn what is Seuur^JoSJ
beautiful and what is not. The ugliest objects ^'yo' beauty,
contain some element of beauty ; and in all, it is an element
peculiar to themselves, which cannot be separated from their
ugliness, but must either be enjoyed together with it, or not at
all. The more a painter accepts nature as he finds it, the more
unexpected beauty he discovers in what he at first despised ;
but once let him arrogate the right of rejection, and he will
gradually contract his circle of enjoyment, until what be
supposed to be nobleness of selection ends in narrowness of
perception. Dwelling perpetually upon one class of ideas, bis
art becomes at once monstrous and morbid; until at last ho
cannot faithfully represent even what he chooses to retain ;
his discrimination contracts into darkness, and his fastidiousness
fades into fatuity.

High art, therefore, consists neither in altering, nor in
improving nature ; but in seeking throughout Uciture for
"whatsoever things are lovely, and whatsoever things are
pure;" in loving these, in displaying to the utmost of the
painter's power such loveliness as is in them, and directing
the thoughts of others to them by winning art, or gentle

36 07 TUE REAL NATURE OF [PART IT.

empbasis. Of the degree in which this can be done, and in
which it may be pennitted to gather together, without falsi-
fying, the finest forms or thoughts, so as to create a sort of
perfect vision, we shall have to speak hereafter : at present, it
is en#ugh to remember that art {cceteris partlnis) is great in
exact proportion to the love of beautj shown hy the painter,
provided that love of beauty forfeit no atom of truth.

§ 16. III. Sincerity. — The next* characteristic of great
art is that it includes the largest possible quantity of Truth
in the most perfect possible harmony. If it were possible for
art to give all the truths of nature, it ought to do it. But this
is not possible. Choice must always be made of some facts
which can be represented, from among others which must be
passed by in silence, or even, in some respects, misrepresented.
The inferior artist chooses unimportant and scattered truths ;
the great artist chooses the most necessary first, and afterwards
the most consistent with these, so as to obtain the greatest
possible and most harmonious sum. For instance, IlemV&ndt
i always chooses to represent the exact force with which the
; light on the most illumined part of an object is opposed to its
1 obscurer portions. In order to obtain this, in most cases, not
^ very important truth, he sacrifices the light and colour of five
sixths of his picture ; and the expression of every character
of objects which depends on tenderness of shape or tint. But
he obtains his single truth, and what picturesque and forcible
t expression is dependent- upon it, with magnificent skill and
subtlety. Veronese, on the contrary, chooses to represent the
great relations of visible things to each other, to the heaven
above, and to the earth beneath them. He hold^ it more
important to show how a figure stands relieved from delicate
air, or marble wall ; how as a red, or purple, or white figure, it
separates itself, in clear discernibility, from things not red, nor
purple, nor white ; how infinite daylight shines round it ; how
innumerable veils of faint shadow invest it ; how its blackness
and darkness are, in the excess of their nature, just as limited
and local as its intensity of light : all this, I say, he feels to
be more important than showing merely the exact 7neasure of
the spark of sunshine that gleams on a dagger-hilt, or glows
* I name them in order of increasing not decreasing importance.

VOL. ni.] GHXATNESS OF 8TTLE. 37

on a jewel. All this, moreover, lie feels to be harxnonioas, —
capable of being joined in one great system of spacious truth.
And with inevitable watchfulness, inestimable subtlety, he
unites all this in tenderest balance, noting in each hair's-
breadth of color, not merely what its rightness or wrongness
is in itself, but what its relation is to every other on hia
canvass ; restraining, for truth's sake, his exhaustless energy,
reining back, for truth's sake, his fiery strength ; veiling, before
truth, the vanity of brightness ; penetrating, for truth, the dis-
couragement of gloom ; ruling his restless invention with a '
rod of u*on ; pardoning no error, no thoughtlessness, no forget-
fulness ; and subduing all his powers, impulses, and imagina-
tions, to the arbitrament of a merciless justice, and the obedience
of an incorruptible verity.

I give this instance with respect to color and shade ; but, in the
whole field of art, the difference between the great and inferior
artists is of the same kind, and may be determined at once by
the question, which of them conveys the largest sum of truth ?
It follows from this principle, that in general all c n. corollary
great drawing is distinct drawing; for truths which J*** fJS^rJiy
are rendered indistinctly might, for the most part, di*^*"^^
as well not be rendered at all. There are, indeed, certain
facts of mystery, and. facts of indistinctness, in all objects,
which must have their proper place in the general har-
mony, and the reader will presently find me, when we come
to that part of our investigation, telling him that all good
drawing must in some sort be indistinct. We may, however,
understand this apparent contradiction, by reflecting that the
highest knowledge always involves a more advanced perception
of the fields of the unknown; and, therefore, it may most
truly be said, that to know anything well involves a profound
sensation of ignorance, while yet it is equally true that good
and noble knowledge is distinguished from vain and useless
knowledge chiefly by its clearness and distinctness, and by the
vigorous consciousness of what is known and what is not.

So in art. The best drawing involves a wonderful perception
and expression of indistinctness; and yet all noble drawing
is separated from the ignoble by its distinctness, by its fine
expression and firm assertion of Something ; whereas the bad

38 07 THE REAL NATURE 07 [PART IV.

drawing, witbout either firmness or fineness, expresses and
asserts Toothing* The first thing, therefore, to be looked for
as a sign of noble art, is a clear consciousness of what is drawn
and what is not ; the bold statement, and frank confession —
" This I know," " that I know not ;*' and, generally speaking,
all haste, slurring, obscurity, indecision, are signs of low art,
and all calmness, distinctness, luminousness, and positivencss,
of high art.

l/^oSiUrtu ^* follows, secondly, from this principle, that as
ffeneniiy large the great painter is always attending to the sum

in manses aud o i^ •/ o

In scale. and harmony of his truths rather than to one

or the other of any group, a quality of Grasp is visible in his
work, like the power of a great reasoner over his subject, or a
great poet over his conception, manifesting itself very often in
missing out certain details or less truths (which, though good
in themselves, he finds are in the way of others), and iu a
sweeping manner of getting the beginnings and ends of things
shown at once, and the squares and depths rather than the sur-
faces : hence, on the whole, a habit of looking at large masses
rather than small ones; and even a physical largeness of
handling, and love of working, if possible, on a large scale ;
and various other qualities, more or less imperfectly expressed
by such technical terms as breadth, massing, unity, boldness,
&c., all of which are, indeed, great qualities when they mean
breadth of truth, weight of truth, unity of truth, and coura-
geous assertion of truth ; but which have all their correlative
errors and mockeries, almost universally mistaken for them, —
the breadth which has no contents, the weight which has no
value, the unity which plots deception, aud the boldness which
faces out fallacy.

§ 19. And it is to be noted especially respecting largeness
of scale, that though for the most part it is characteristic of
the more powerful masters, they having both more invention
wherewith to fill space (as Ghirlandajo wished that he might
paint all the walls of Florence), and, often, an impetuosity of
mind which makes them like free play for hand and arm
(besides that they usually desire to paint everything in the
foreground of their picture of the natural size), yet, as tins
largeness of scale involves the placing of the picture at a con-

VOL. ni.] GREATNESS OF STYLE, 39

siderable distance from the eye, and this distance involves tlie
loss of many delicate details, and especially of the subtle lines
of expression in features, it follows that the masters of refined
detail and human expression are apt to prefer a small scale to
work upon ; so that the chief masterpieces of expression which
tlie world possesses are small pictures by Angelico, in which
the figures are rarely more than six or seven inches high ; in
the best works of Eaphael and Leonardo the figures are almost
always less than life, and the best works of Turner do not
exceed the size of 18 inches by 12.

As its greatness depends on the sum of truth, §2'>. Corollary

-,,. n t 1 1. -II Srd: Great ait is

and this sum of truth can always be increased by always dciicato.
delicacy of handling, it follows that all great art must have
this delicacy to the utmost possible degree. This rule is
infallible aifd inflexible. All coarse work is the sign of low art.
Only, it is to be remembered, that coarseness must be estimated
by the distance from the eye ; it being necessary to consult this
distance, when great, by laying on touches which appear
coarse when seen near ; but which, so far from being coarse,
are, in reality, more delicate in a master's work than the finest
close handling, for they involve a calculation of result, and are
laid on with a subtlety of sense precisely correspondent to that
with which a good archer draws his bow ; the spectator seeing
in the action nothing but the strain of the strong arm, while
there is, in reality, in the finger and eye, an ineffably delicate
estimate of distance, and touch on the arrow plume. And,
indeed, this delicacy is generally quite percpptible to those who
know what the truth is, for strokes by Tintoret or Paul
Veronese, which were done in an instant, and look to an
ignorant spectator mferely like a violent dash of loaded color,
(and are, as such, imitated by blundering artists,) are, in fact,
modulated by the brush and finger to that degree of delicacy
that no single. grain of the color could be taken from the touch
without injury ; and little golden particles of it, not the size of
a gnat's head, have important share and function in the balances
of light in a picture perhaps fifty feet long. Nearly eve y other
rule applicable to art has some exception but this. This has
absolutely none. All great art is delicate art, and all coarse
art is bad art. Nay, even to a certain extent, all hold art is

40 ' ' OF THB REAL XTATURS OP [PART IV.

bad art ; for boldness is not the proper word to apply to tbe
courage and swiftness of a great master, based on knowledge,
and coupled with fear and love. There is as much difference
between the boldness of the true and the false masters, as there
is between the courage of a pure woman and the shamelessness
of a lost one.

§ 21. IV. IwENTiOiX. — The last characteristic of great art
is that it must be inventive, that is, be produced hy the imagi-
nation. In this respect, it must precisely fulfil the definition
already given of poetry ; and not only present grounds for
noble emotion, but furnish these grounds by imaginative power.
Hence there is at once a great bar fixed between the two
schools of Lower and Higher Art. The lower merely copies
what is set before it, whether in portrait, landscape, or still-
life ; the higher either entirely imagines its subject, or arranges
the materials presented to it, so as to manifest the imaginative
power in all the three phases which have been already explained
in the second volume.

And this was the truth which was confusedly present in Rey-
nolds's mind when he spoke, as above quoted, of the difference
between Historical and Poetical Painting. Every i el- ti on of
the pluin Jacts which the painter saw is proper historical paint-
ing.* If those facts are unimportant (as that he saw a gambler
quarrel with another gambler, or a sot enjoying himself with
another sot), then the history is trivial ; if the facts are import-
ant (as that he saw such and such a great man look thus, or act
thus, at such a time), then the history is noble : in each case
perfect truth of narrative being supposed, otherwise the whole
thing is worthless, being neither history nor poetry, but plain
falsehood. And farther, as greater or less elegance and pre-
cision are manifested in the relation or painting of the incidents,
the merit of the work varies ; so that, what with difference of
subject, and what with difference of treatment, historical paint-
ing falls or rises in changeful eminence, from Dutch trivialities
to a Velasquez portrait, just as historical talking or writing
varies in eminence, from an old woman's story-telling up to
Herodotus. Besides which, certain operations of the imagina-
tion come into play inevitably, here and there, so as to touch
» Compare my Edinburgh Lectures, lecture iv. p. 218, et seq. (2nd edition).

VOL. ni.] GRXATNXSS OT 8TTLX. * 41

the history with some light of poetry, that is, with some light
shot forth of the narrator's mind, or hrought out hy the waj he
has put the accidents together ; and wherever the imagination
has thus had anything to do with the matter at all (and it must
be somewhat cold work where it has not), then, the confines of
the lower and higher schools touching each other, the work is
colored by both ; but there is no reason why, therefore, we
should in the least confuse the historical and poetical characters,
any more than that we should confuse blue with crimson,
because they may overlap each other, and produce purple.

§ 22. Now, historical or simply narrative art is very precious
in its prSper place and way, but it is never great art until the
poetical or imaginative power touches it ; and in proportion to
the stronger manifestation of this power, it becomes greater
and greater, while the highest art is purely imaginative, all its
materials being wrought into their form by invention ; and it
differs, therefore, from the simple historical painting, exactly as
Wordsworth's stanza, above quoted, differs from Saussure's
plain narrative of the parallel fact ; and the imaginative painter
differs from the historical painter in the manner that Words-
worth differs from Saussure.

§ 23. Farther, imaginative art always includes historical art ;
so that, strictly speaking, according to the analogy above used,
we meet with the pure blue, and with the crimson ruling the
blue and changing it into kingly purple, but not with the pure
crimson : for all imagination must deal with the knowledge it
has before accumulated; it never produces anything but by*
combination or contemplation. Creation, in the full sense, is
impossible to it. And the mode in which the historical facul-
ties are included by it is often quite simple, and easily seen.
Thus, in Hunt's great poetical picture of the Light of the
World, the whole thought and arrangement of the picture being
imaginative, the several details of it are wrought out with
simple portraiture ; the ivy, the jewels, the creeping plants, and
the moonlight being calmly studied or remembered from the
things themselves. But of all these special ways in which the
invention works with plain facts, we shall have to treat farther
afterwards.

§ 24. And now, finally, since this poetical power includes the

42 OF THE REAL NATURE OF [pART IV.

historical, if we glance back to the other qualities required in
great art, and put all together, we find that the sum of them is
simply the sum of all the powers of man. For as (1) the choice
of the high subject involves all conditions of right moral choicer
and as (2) the love of beauty involves all conditions of right
admiration, and as (3) the grasp of truth involves all strength
of sense, evenness of judgment, and honesty of purpose, and as
(4) the poetical power involves all swiflnesR of invention, and
accuracy of historical memory, the sum of all these powers is
^the sum of the human soul. Hence we see why the word
" Great" is used of this art. It is literally great. It compasses
and calls forth the entire human spirit, whereas any other kind
of art, being more or less small or narrow, compasses and calls
forth only part of the human spirit. Hence the idea of its
magnitude is a literal and just one, the art being simply less or
greater in proportion to the number of faculties it exercises and
addresses.* And this is the ultimate meaning of the definition
I gave of it long ago, as containing the " greatest number of the
greatest ideas."

§ 25. Such, then, being the characters required in order to
constitute high art, if the reader will think over them a little,
and over the various ways in which they may be falsely
assumed, he will easily perceive how spacious and dangerous a
field of discussion they open to the ambitious critic, and of error
to the ambitious artist ; he will see how difiicult it must be,
either to distinguish what is truly great art from the mockeries
of it, or to rank the real artists in any thing like a progressive
system of greater and less. For it will have been observed
that the various qualities which form greatness are partly
inconsistent with each other (as some virtues are, docility and
firmness for instance), and partly independent of each other ;
and the fact is, that artists difier not more by mere capacity,
than by the component elements of their capacity, each possess-
ing in very different proportions tlie several attributes of
greatness ; so that, classed by one kind of merit, as, for instance,
purity of expression, Angelico will stand highest ; classed by
another, sincerity of manner, Veronese will stand highest; classed
by another, love of beauty, Leonardo will stand highest ; and
* Compare Stones of Venice, v()L iii. chap. iv. § 7, and § 21.

VOL. ni.] GREATNESS OF STYLE. 43

SO on ; lience arise continual disputes and misunderstandings
among those who think that high art must always be one and
the same, and that great artists ought to unite all great attributes
in an equal degree.

§ 26, In one of the exquisitely finished tales of Marmontel,
a company of critics are received at dinner by the hero of the
story, an old gentleman, somewhat vain of his acquired taste,
and his niece, by whoso incorrigible natural taste, he is seriously
disturbed and tormented. During the entertainment, "On
parcourut tons les genres de litterature, et pour donner plus
d'essor h, Terudition et k la critique, on mit sur le tapis cette
question toute neuve, sqavoir, lequel m^ritoit le pr.'forence de
Oorneille ou de Eacine. L'on disoit m^me R-dessus les
plus belles choses du monde, lorsque la petite niece, qui n'avoit
pas dit un mot, s'avisa de demander naivement lequel des
deux fruits, de Torange ou de la pt^che, avoit le goiit les plus
exquis et meritoit le plus d'eloges. Son oncle rougit de sa sim-
plicite, et les convives baisserent tons les yeux sans daigner
rcpondre a cette bStise. Ma niece, dit Fintac, a votre &ge, il
faut sgavoir 6couter, et se taire."

I cannot close this chapter with shorter or better advice to
the reader, than merely, whenever he hears discussions about
the relative merits of great masters, to remember the young
lady's question. It is, indeed, true that there is a relative
merit, that a peach is nobler than a hawthorn berry, and still
more a hawthorn berry than a bead of the nightshade ; but
in each rank of fruits, as in each rank of masters, one is
endowed with one virtue, and another with another ; their glory
is their dissimilarity, and they who propose to themselves
in the training of an artist that he should unite the coloring of
Tintoret, the finish of Albert Durer, and the tenderness of
Correggio, are no wiser than a horticulturist would be, who
made it the object of his labor to produce a fruit which should
unite in itself the lusciousness of the grape, the crispness of the
nut, and the fragrance of the pine.

§ 27. And from these considerations one most important
practical corollary is to be deduced, with the good help of
Mademoiselle Agathe's simile, namely, that the greatness or
smallness of a man is, in the most conclusive sense, determined

44 REAL NATURE OV GREATNESS OF BTTXE. [PART XY.

for Lim at his birth, as strictly as it is determined for a fruit
whether it is to be a currant or an apricx>t. Education, favor-
able circumstances, resolution, and industry can do much ; in a
certain sense they do everything; that is to say, they determine
whether the poor apricot shall fall in the form ox a green bead,
blighted by an east wind, shall be trodden under foot, or whether
it shall expand into tender pride, and sweet brightness of golden
velvet. Bui apricot out of currant, — great man out of small,
—did never yet art or effort make ; and, in a general way, men
have their excellence nearly fixed for them when they are
bom ; a little cramped and frost-bitten on one side, a little sun-
burnt and fortune-spotted on the other, they reach, between
good and evil chances, such size and taste as generally belong
to the men of their calibre, and the small in their serviceable
bunches, the great in their golden isolation, have, these no
cause for regret, nor those for disdain.

§ 28. Therefore it is, that every system of teaching is false
which holds forth ** great art" as in any wise to be taught
to students, or even to be aimed at by them. Great art is pre-
cisely that which never was, nor will be taught, it is pre-emi-
nently and finally the expression of the spirits of great men ;
so that the only wholesome teaching is that which simply
endeavors to ^tl those characters of nobleness in the pupil's
mind, of which it seems easily susceptible ; and without holding
out to him, as a possible or even probable result, that he should
ever paint like Titian, or carve like Michael Angelo, enforces
upon him the manifest possibility, and assured duty, of endea-
voring to draw in a manner at least honest and intelligible ;
and cultivates in him those general charities of heart, sinceri-
ties of thought, and graces of habit which are likely to lead
him, throughout life, to prefer openness to affectation, realities
to shadows, and beauty to corruption.

VOL. m.] 07 THS FALSE IDKAX: I. BEUOIOUS. 46

CHAPTEE IV.

OF THE FALSE IDEAL I FIRST, RELIGIOUS.

§ 1. Having now gained some general notion of tbe mean-
ing of "great art," we may, without risk of confusing our-
selves, take up the questions suggested incidentally in the
preceding chapter, and pursue them at leisure. Of these, two
principal ones are closely connected with each other, to wit,
that put in the 12th paragraph — How may heauty he sought
in defiance of truth 1 and that in the 23rd paragraph — How
does the imagination show itself in dealing with truth 1 These
two, therefore, which are, hesides, the most important of all,
and, if well answered, will answer many others inclusively,
we shall find it most convenient to deal with at once.

§ 2. The pursuit, hy the imagination, of beautiful and
strange thoughts or subjects, to the exclusion of painful or
common ones, is called among us, in these modem days, the
pursuit of *^the ideal ;*^ nor does any subject deserve more
attentive examination than the manner in which this pursuit is
entered upon by the modem mind. The reader must pardon
me for making in the outset one or two statements which may
appear to him somewhat wide of the matter, but which, (if he
admits their truth,) he will, I think, presently perceive to
reach to the root of it. Namely,

That men's proper business in this world falls mainly into
three diyisions :

First, to know themselves, and the existing state of the
things they have to do with.

Secondly, to be happy in themselves, and in the existing
state of things.

Thirdly, to mend themselves, and the existing state of
things, as far as either are marred or mcndable.

46 OF THE FALSE IDEAL. [pART IV,

These, I say, are the three plain divisions of proper human
business on this earth. For these three, the following are
usually substituted and adopted by human creatures :

First, to be totally ignorant of themselves, and the existing
state of things.

Secondly, to be miserable in themselves, and in the existing
state of things.

liliirdly, to let themselves, and the existing state of things,
alone (at least in the way of correction).

§ 3. The dispositions which induce us to manage, thus wise-
ly, the affairs of this life seem to be :

First, a fear of disagreeable facts, and conscious shrinking
from clearness of light, which keep us from examining our-
selves, and increase gradually into a species of instinctive
terror at all truth, and love of glosses, veils, and decorative
lies of every sort.

Secondly, a general readiness to take delight in anything
past, future, far off, or somewhere else, rather than in things
now, near, and here; leading us gradually to place our
pleasure principally in the exercise of the imagination, and to
build all our satisfaction on things as they are not. Which
power being one not accorded to the lower animals, and hav-
ing indeed, when disciplined," a very noble use, we pride our-
selves upon it, whether disciplined or not, and pass our lives
complacently, in substantial discontent, ani visionary satisfac-
tion.

§ 4. Now nearly all artistical and poetical* seeking after the
ideal is only one branch of this base habit — the abuse of the
imagination, in allowing it to find its whole delight in the im-
possible and untrue ; while the faithful pursuit of the ideal is
an honest use of the imagination, giving full power and
presence to the possible and true.

It is the difference between these two uses of it which we

* •

have to examine.

§ 5. And, first, consider what are the legitimate uses of the
imagination, that is to say, of the power of perceiving, or con-
ceiving with the mind, things •which cannot be perceived by
the senses.

Its first and noblest use is, to enable us to bring sensibly

VOL. III.] I. RELIGIOUS. 47

to our sight the things which are recorded as heloDgiDg
to onr future state, or as invisibly surrounding us in this.
It is given us, that we may imagine the cloud of witnesses
in heaven and earth, and see, as if they were now pre-
sent, the souls of the righteous waiting for us ; • that we
may conceive the great army of the inhabitants of heaven,
and discover among them those whom we most desire to
be with for ever ; that we may be able to vision forth
the ministry of angels beside us, and see the chariots
of fire on the mountains that gird us round ; but above all,
to call up the scenes and facts in which wo are commanded
to believe, and be present, as if in the body, at every recorded
event of the history of the Redeemer. Its second and ordi-
nary use is to empower us to traverse the scenes of all other
history, and force the facts to become again visible, so as to
make upon us the same impression which they would have
made if we had witnessed them ; and in the minor necessities
of life, to enable us, out of any present good, to gather the ut-
most measure of enjoyment by investing it with happy asso-
ciations, and, in any present evil, to lighten it, by summoning
back the images of other hours ; and, also, to give to all men-
tal truths some visible type in allegory, simile, or personifica-
tion, which shall more deeply enforce them; and, finally,
when the mind is utterly outwearied, to refresh it with such
innocent play as shall be most in harmony with the suggestive
voices of natural things, permitting it to possess living com-
panionship instead of silent beauty, and create for itself fairies
in the grass and naiads in the wave.

§ 6. These being the uses of imagination, its abuses are
either in creating, for mere pleasure, false images, where it is
its duty to create true ones ; or in turning what was intended
for the mere refreshment of the heart into its daily food, and
changing the innocent pastimes of an hour into the guilty
occupation of a life.

Let us examine the principal forms of this misuse, one by one.

§ 7. First, then, the imagination is chiefly warped and dis-
honored by being allowed to create false images, where it is
its duty to create true ones. And this most dangerously in
matters of religion. For a long time, when art was in its in-

48 OF THE FALSE IDEAL. [PART IT.

fancy, it remained unexposed to tUs danger, Lecanse it could
not, with any power, realize or create any thing. It consisted
merely in simple outlines and pleasant colors ; which were
understood to be nothing more than signs of the thing thought
of, a sort of pictorial letter for it, no more pretending to repre-
sent it than the written characters of its name. Such art
excited the imagination, while it pleased the eye. But it
asserted nothing, for it could realize nothing. The reader
glanced at it as a glittering symbol, and went on to form truer
images for himself. This act of the mind may be still seen in
daily operation in children, as they look at brightly colored
pictures in their story-books. Such pictures neither deceive
them nor satisfy them ; they only set their own inventive
powers to work in the directions required.

§ 8. But as soon as art obtained the power of realization, it
obtained also that of assertion. As fast as the painter ad-
vanced in skill he gained also in credibility, and that which he
perfectly represented was perfectly believed, or could be dis-
believed only by an actual effort of the beholder to escape
from the fascinating deception. What had been faintly de-
clared, might be painlessly denied ; but it was diflScult to dis-
credit things forcibly alleged ; and representations, which had
been innocent in discrepancy, became guilty in consistency.

§ 9. For instance, when in the thirteenth century, the na-
tivity was habitually represented by such a symbol as that on
the next page, fig. 1., there was not the smallest possibility
that such a picture could disturb, in the mind of the reader of
the New Testament, the simple meaning of the words " wrap-
ped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger.** That
this manger was typified by a trefoiled arch* would no more
prevent his distinct understanding of the narrative, than the
grotesque heads introduced above it would interfere with his
firm comprehension of the words "ox" or "ass;" while if
there were anything in the action of the principal figures

* The curious inequality of this little trefoil is not a mistake; it is faith-
fully copied by the draughtsftan from the MS. Perhaps the actual date
of the illumination may be a year or two past the thirteenth century, ie.
1300 — 1310: but it is quite characteristic of the thirteenth century treat-
ment in the figures.

TOL. III.]

I. RELIGIOUS.

49

suggestive of real feeling, tbat snggestion he wonld accept,
together with the general pleasantness
of the line a and colors m the Jtscorative
letter ; but without ha v lag hb faith in
the un re presented and actual scene ob-
scured for a mom cut. But it was far
otherwise, when Franci^i or l^crugino,
with exquisite power of representing the
human form, and high knowledge of the
mystcrica of art, devoted all their skill

to the delineation of an
iuipossilde scene ; and
painted, for their subjects
^ of the Nativity, a beauti-
^-&> ful and queenly bidy, her
dress embroidered with
a crown of jewels upon
her hair, kncermg-, on a floor of in-
laid and prccioui^ marble, before a crown-
ed child, laid under a portico of Lombar-

VOL. Ill

50 OF THE FAL8B IDEAL. [pART IT.

die* architecture; with a sweet, verdurous, and vivid land-
scape in the distance, full of winding rivers, village spires, and
baronial towers.t It is quite true that the frank absurdity of
the thought prevented its being received as a deliberate con-
tradiction of the truths of Scripture ; but it is no less certain,
that the continual presentment to the mind of this beautiful and
fully realized imagery more and more chilled its power of appre-
hending the real truth ; and that when pictures of this descrip-
tion met the eye in every corner of every chapel, it was physi-
cally impossible to dwell distinctly upon facts the direct reverse
of those represented. The word ** Virgin" or " Madonna,"
instead of calling up the vision of a simple Jewish girl, bearing*
the calamities of poverty, and the dishonors of inferior station,
summoned instantly the idea of «a graceful princess, crowned
with gems,, and surrounded by obsequious ministry of kings
and saints. The fallacy which was presented to the imagina-
tion was indeed discredited, but also the fact which was not
presented to the imagination was forgotten ; all true grounds of
faith were gradually undermined, and the beholder ivas either
enticed into mere luxury of fanciful enjoyment, believing
nothing ; or left, in his confusion of mind, the prey of vaia
tales and traditions ; while in his best feelings he was uncon-
sciously subject to the power of the fallacious picture, and with
no sense of the real cause of his error, bowed himself, in prayer
or adoration, to the lovely lady on her golden throne, when he
would never have dreamed of doing so to the Jewish girl iu
her outcast poverty, or, in her simple household, to the car-
pehter's wife.

§ 10. But a shadow of increasing darkness fell upon the
human mind as art proceeded to still more perfect realization.
These fantasies of the earlier painters, though they darkened
faith, never hardened feeling ; on the contrary, the frankness
of their unlikelihood proceeded mainly from the endeavor ou
the part of the painter to express, not the actual fact, but
the enthusiastic state of his own feelings about the fact ; he

* Lombardic, i.e. in the style of Pietro and Tullio Loinbardo, in the
fifteenth century (not Lombard).

f All this, it will be observed, is that seeking for beauty at the cost of
truth which we have generally noted in the last chapter.

VOL. in.] I. RELIGIOUS. 51

covers the Virgin's dress with gold, not with any idea of repre-
senting the Virgin as she ever was, or ever will be seen, but
with a burning desire to show what his love and reverence
woul I think fittest for her. Ho erects for the stable a Loin-
bardic portico, not because he supposes the Lombard! to have
built stables in Palestine in the days of Tiberius, but to show
that the manger in which Christ was laid is, in his eyes, nobler
than the greatest architecture in the world. He fills his land-
scape with church spires and silver streams, not because he
supposes that either were in sight of Bethlehem, but to remind
the beholder of the peaceful course and succeeding power of
Christianity. And, regarded with due sympathy and clear
understanding of these thouglits of the artist, such pictures
remain most impressive and touching, even to this day. I shall
refer to them in future, in general terms, as the pictures of the
" Angelican Ideal** — Angelico being the central master of the
school.

§ 11. It was far otherwise in the next step of the Ilealistic
progresa' The greater his powers became, the more the mind
of the painter was absorbed in their attainment, and compla-
cent in their display. The early arts of laying on bright colors
smoothly, of burnishing golden ornaments, or tracing, leaf by
leaf, the outlines of flowers, were not so difficult as that they
should materially occupy the thoughts of the artist, or furnish
foundation for his conceit ; he learned these rudiments of his
work without pain, and employed them without pride, his spirit
being left free to express, so far as it was capable of them, the
reaches of higher thought. But when accurate shade, and
subtle color, and perfect anatomy, and complicated perepective,
became necessary to the work, the artist's whole energy was
employed in learning the laws of these, and his whole pleasure
consisted in exhibiting them. His life was devoted, not to the
objects of art, but to the cunning of it ; and the sciences of
composition and light and shade were pursued as if there were
abstract good in them ; — as if, like astronomy or mathematics,
they were ends in themselves, irrespective of anything to be
effected by them. And without perception, on the part of any
one, of the abyss to which all were hastening, a fatal change of
aim took place throughout the whole world of art. In early

52 OF THE FALSE IDEAL. [PART IV.

times art wat employed for the display of reUgums facte ; now,
religious facta wei'e employed for the display of art. The transi-
tion, though imperceptible, was consummate ; it involved the
cntiiiB destiny of painting. It was passing from the paths of
life to the paths of death.

§ 12. And this change was all the more fatal, because at first
veiled by an appearance of greater dignity and sincerity than
were possessed by the older art. One of the earliest results of
the new knowledge was the putting away the greater part of
the unlikelihoods and fineries of the ancient pictures, and an
apparently closer following of nature and probability. All the
fantasy which I have just been blaming as disturbant of the
simplicity of faith, was first subdued, — then despised and cast
aside. The appearances of nature were more closely followed
in everything; and the crowned Queen- Virgin of Perugino
sank into a simple Italian mother in Eaphaers Madonna of the
Chair.

§ 13. Was not this, then, a healthy change? No. It would
have been healthy if it had been effected with a pure motive,
and the new truths would have been precious if they had been
sought for truth's sake. But they were not sought for truth's
sake, but for pride's ; and truth which is sought for display
may be just as harmful as truth which is spoken in malice.
The glittering childishness of the old art was rejected, not be-
cause it was false, but because it was easy ; and, still more,
because the painter had no longer any religious passion to
express. He could think of the Madonna now very calmly,
with no desire to pour out the treasures of earth at her feet, or
crown her brows with the golden shafts of heaven. He could
think of her as an available subject for the display of trans-
parent shadows, skilful tints, and scientific foreshortenings, — as
a fair woman, forming, if well painted, a pleasant piece of fur-
niture for the corner of a boudoir, and best imagined by com-
bination of the beauties of the prettiest contadinas. He could
think of her, in her last maternal agony, with academical
discrimination ; sketch in first her skeleton, invest her, in
serene science, with the muscles of misery and the fibres of
sorrow ; then cast the grace of antique drapery over the naked-
ness of her desolation, and fulfil, with studious lustre of tears

VOL. III.] I. RELIGIOUS. 53

and delicately painted pallor, the perfect type of the " Mater
Dolorosa."

§ 14. It was thus that Eaphael thought of the Madonna.*

Now observe, when the subject was thus scientifically com-
pleted, it became necessary, as we have just said, to the full
display of all the power of the artist, that it should in many
respects be more faithfully imagined than it had been hitherto.
** Keeping," " Expression," " Historical Unity," and such other
requirements, were enforced on the painter, in the same tone,
and with the same purpose, as the purity of his oil and the
accuracy of his perspective. He was told that the figure of
Christ should be " dignified," those of the Apostles " expres-
sive," that of the Virgin "modest," and those of children
" innocent." All this was perfectly true ; and in obedience to
such directions, the painter proceeded to manufacture certain
arrangements of apostolic sublimity, virginal mildness, and
infantine innocence, which, being free from the quaint imper-
fection and contradictoriness of the early art, were looked upon
by the European public as true things, and trustworthy repre-
sentations of the events of religious history. The pictures of
Francia and Bellini had been received as pleasant visions. But
the cartoons of Baphael were received as representations of
historical fact.

§ 15. Now, neither they, nor any other work of the period,
were representations either of historical or possible fact. They
were, in the strictest sense of the word, " compositions " — cold
arrangements of propriety and agreeableness, according to
a'iademical formulas; the painter never in any case making
the slightest effort to conceive the thing as it must have
happened, but only to gather together graceful lines and beau-
tiful faces, in such compliance with commonplace ideas of the
subject as might obtain for the whole an " epic unity," or some
such other form of scholastic perfectness.

§ 16. Take a very important instance.

I suppose there is no event in the whole life of Christ to
which, in hours of doubt or fear, men turn with more anxious
thirst to know the close facts of it, or with more earnest and

* This is one form of the sacrifice of expression to technical merit, gene-
rally noted at the end of the 10th paragraph of the last chapter.

V

54 OF THE FALSE IDEAL. [PART IV.

passionate dwelling upon everj syllable of its recorded narra-
tive, than Christ's showing Himself to his disciples at the lake
of Galilee. There is something preeminently open, natnral,
full fronting our disbelief in this manifestation. The others,
recorded after the resurrection, were sudden, phantom-like»
occurring to men in profound sorrow and wearied agitation of
heart ; not, it might seem, safe judges of what they saw. But
the agitation was now over. They had gone back to their
daily work, thinking still their business lay net-wards, un-
meshed from the literal rope and drag. " Simon Peter saith
unto them, ' I go a fishing ' They say unto him, * We also go
with thee.' " True words enough, and having far echo beyond
those Galilean hills. That night they caught nothing; but
when the morning came, in the clear light of it, behold a figure
stood on the shore. They were not thinking of anything but
their fruitless hauls. They had no guess who it was. It asked
them simply if they had caught anything. They said no. And
it tells them to cast yet again. And John shades his eyes from
the morning sun with his hand, to look who it is ; and though
the glinting of the sea, too, dazzles him, he makes out who it is,
at last ; and poor Simon, not to be outrun this time, tightens his
fisher's coat about him, and dasl^es in, over the nets. One
would have liked to see him swim those hundred yards, and
stagger to his knees on the beach.

Well, the others get to the beach, too, in time, in such slow
way as men in general do get, in this world, to its true shore,
much impeded by that wonderful " dragging the net with
fishes ;" but they get there — seven of them in all ; — first the
Denier, and then the slowest believer, and then the quickest
believer, and then the two throne-seekers, and two more, we
know not who.

They sit down on the shore face to face with Him, and eat
their broiled fish as He bids. And then, to Peter, all dripping
still, shivering, and amazed, staring at Christ in the sun, on the
other side of the coal fire, — thinking a little, perhaps, of what
happened by another coal fire, when it was colder, and having
had no word once changed with him by his Master since that
look of His, — to him, so amazed, comes the question, " Simon,
lovest thou mo ]" Try to feel that a little, and think of it till

VOL. III.] I. RELIGIOUS. 55

it is true to you ; and tlien, take up that infinite monstrosity and
hypocrisy — EaphaePs cartoon of the Charge to Peter. Note,
£rst, the hold fallacy — the putting all the Apostles there, a
mere lie to serve the Papal heresy of the Petric supremacy, by
putting them all in the background while Peter receives the
charge, and making them all witnesses to it. Note the hand-
somely curled hair and neatly tied sandals of the men who had
been out all night in the sea-mists and on the slimy decks.
Note their convenient dresses for going a-fishing, with trains
that lie a yard along the ground, and goodly fringes, — ^all made
to match, an apostolic fishing costume.* Note how Peter espe-
jsially (whose chief glory was in his wet coat girt about him
and naked limbs) is enveloped in folds and fringes, so as to
kneel and hold his keys with grace. No fire of coals at all,
nor lonely mountain shore, but a pleasant Italian landscape, full
of villas and churches, and a flock of sheep to be pointed at ;
and the whole group of Apostlec, not round Christ, as they
would have been naturally, but straggling away in a line, that
they may all be shown.

The simple truth is, that the moment we look at the picture
we feel our belief of the whole thing taken away. * There is,
visibly, no possibility of that group ever having existed, in any
place, or on any occasion. It is all a mere mythic absurdity,
and faded concoction of fringes, muscular arms, and curly heads
of Greek philosophers.

§ 17. Now, the evil consequences of the acceptance of this
kind of religious idealism for true, were instant and manifold.
So far as it was received and trusted in by thoughtful persons,
it only served to chill all the conceptions of sacred history
which they might otherwise have obtained. Whatever they
could have fancied for themselves about the wild, strange, infi-
nitely stern, infinitely tender, infinitely varied veracities of the life
of Christ, was blotted out by the vapid fineries of Raphael ; the
rough Galilean pilot, the orderly custom receiver, and all the
questioning wonder and fire of uneducated apqstleship, were ob-
scured und^r an antique mask of philosophical faces and long

* I suppose Raphael intended a reference to Numbers xv. 38. ; but if ho
did, the hltbe riband, or " vitta,** as it is in the Vulgate, should have been
on the borders too.

56 OF TH3 FALSE IDEAL. [PART IV.

robes*. The feeble, sabtto, sufFering, ce<ase1e8S energy and hnmi-
liation of St. Paul were confused with an idea of a meditative
Hercules leaning on a sweeping sword ;• and the mighty pre-
sences of Moses and Elias were softened by introductions of
delicate grace, adopted from dancing nymphs and rising
Auroras.!

Now, no vigorously minded religious person could possibly
receive pleasure or help from such art as this ; and the neces-
sary result was the instant rejection of it by the healthy reli-
gion of the world. Raphael ministered, with applause, to the
impious luxury of the Vatican, but was trampled under foot at
once by every believing and advancing Christian of his own
and subsequent times ; and thenceforward pure Christianity
and " high art" took separate roads, and fared on, as best they
might, independently of each other.

§ 18. But although Calvin, and Knox, and Luther, and their
flocks, with all the hardest-headed and truest-hearted faithM
left in Christendom, thus spumed away the spurious art, and all
art with it, (not without harm to themselves, such as a man
must needs sustain in cutting off a decayed limbf) certain con-
ditions of weaker Christianity suffered the false system to
retain influence over them; and to this day, the clear and
tasteless poison of the art of Raphael infects with sleep of infi-
delity the hearts of millions of Christians. It is the first cause
of all that preeminent dulness which characterizes what Protes-
tants call sacred art ; a dulness not merely baneful in making

* In the St. Cecilia of Bologna.

f la the Transfiguration. Do but try to believe that Moees and Elias are
really there talking with Christ. Moses iu the loveliest heart and midst of
the land which once it had been denied him to behold, — ^Elijah treading the
earth again, from which he had been swept to heaven iu fire ; both now
with a mightier message than ever they had given in life, — ^mightier,
in closing their own mission, — mightier, in speaking to Christ **of His
decease, which He should accomplish at Jerusalent.* They, men of
like passions once with us, appointed to speak to the Redeemer of His
death.

And, then, look at Raphaers kicking gracefulnesses.

\ Luther had no dislike of religious art on principle. Even the stove in
his chamber was wrought with sacred subjects. See Mrs. Stowc's Sunny
Memories.

VOL. ni.] I. RELIGIOUS. * 6l

religion distasteful to the young, but m sickening, as we have
seen, all vital belief of religion in the old. A dim sense of
impossibility attaches itself always to the graceful emptiness
of the representation; we feel instinctively that the painted
Christ and painted apostle are not beings that ever did or
could exist ; and this fatal sense of fair fabulousness, and well-
composed impossibility, steals gradually from the picture into the
history, until we find ourselves reading St. Mark or St. Luke
with the same admiring, but uninterested, incredulity, with
which we contemplate Eaphael.

§ 19. On a certain class of minds, however, these Raphael-
esque and other sacred paintings of high order, have had, of
late years, another kind of influence, much resembling that
which they had at first on the most pious Romanists. They
are u^ed to excite certain conditions of religious dream or
reverie ; being again, as in earliest times, regarded not as repre-
sentations of fact, but as expressions of sentiment respecting
the fact. In this way the best of them have unquestionably
much purifymg and enchanting power ; and they are helpful
opponents to sinful passion and weakness of every kind. A
fit of unjust anger, petty malice, unreasonable vexation, or
dark passion, cannot certainly, in a mind of ordinary sensibility,
hold its own in the presence of a good engraving from any
work of Angelico, Memling, or Perugino. But I nevertheless
believe, that he who trusts much to such helps will find them
fail him at his need } and that the dependence, in any great
degree, on the presence or power of a picture, indicates a
wonderfully feeble sense of the presence and power of God.
I do not think that any man, who is thoroughly certain that
Christ is in the room, will care what sort of pictures of Christ
he has on its walls ; and, in the plurality of cases, the delight
taken in art of this kind is, in reality, nothing more than a form
of graceful indulgence of those sensibilities which the habits
of a disciplined life restrain in other directions. Such art is,
in a word, the opera and drama of the monk. Sometimes it is
worse than this, and the love of it is the mask under which a
general thirst for morbid excitement will pass itself for religion.
The young lady who rises in the middle of the day, jaded by
her last night's ball, and utterly incapable of any simple or

3*

58 * OF THE FALSE IDEAL. [pART IV.

wholesome religions exercise, can still gaze into the dark eyes
of the Madonna di San Sisto, or dream over the whiteness of
an ivory crncifix, and returns to the course of her daily life in
full persuasion that her morning's fcverishness has atoned for
her evening's folly. And all the while, the art which possesses
these very douhtful advantages is acting for undouhtful detri-
ment, in the various ways above examined, on the inmost fast-
nesses of faith ; it is throwing subtle endearments round foolish
traditions, confusing sweet fancies ^ith sound doctrines, obscur-
ing real events with unlikely semblances, and enforcing false
assertions with pleasant circumstantiality, until, to the usual,
and assuredly sufficient, difficulties standing in the way of belief,
its votaries have added a habit of sentimentally changing what
they know to be true, and of dearly loving what they confess
to be false.

§ 20. lias there, then (the reader asks emphaticdly), been
no true religious ideal 1 Has religious art never been of any
service to mankind 1 I fear, on the whole, not. Of true
religious ideal, representing events historically recorded, with
solemn effort at a sincere and unartificial conception, there
exist, as yet, hardly any examples. Nearly all good religious
pictures fall into one or other branch of the false ideal al-
ready examined, either into the Angelican (passionate ideal)
or the Raphaelesque (philosophical ideal). But there is one
.true form of religious art, nevertheless, in the pictures of the
passionate ideal which represent imaginary beings of another
world. Since it is evidently right that we should try to
imagine the glories of the next world, and as this imagination
must be, in each separate mind, more or less different, and
unconfined by any laws of material fact, the passionate ideal
has not only full scope here, but it becomes our duty to urge
its powers to its utmost, so that every condition of beautiful
form and color may be employed to invest these scenes with
greater delightfulness (the whole being, of course, received as
an assertion of possibility, not of absolute fact). All the para-
dises imagined by the religious painters — the choirs of glorified
saints, angels, and spiritual powers, when painted with full be-
lief in this possibility of their existence, are true ideals ; and
so far from our having dwelt on these too much, I believe.

VOL. UI.] I. RELIGIOUS. 59

rather, we have not trusted them enough, nor accepted them
enough, as possible statements of most precious truth. Nothing
but unmixed good can accnte to any mind from the contempla-
tion of Orcagna's Last Judgment or his triumph of death, of
Angelico's Last Judgment and Paradise, or any of the scenes
laid in heaven by the other faithful religious masters ; and the
more they are considered, not as works of art, but as real
visions of real things, more or less imperfectly set down, the
more good will be got by dwelling upon them. The same is
true of all representations of Christ as a living presence among
us now, as in Hunt's Light of the World.

§ 21. For the rest, there is a reality of conception in some
of the works of Benozzo Gozzoli, Ghirlandajo, and Giotto,
which approaches to a true ideal, even of recorded facts. But
the examination of the various degrees in which sacred art has
reached its proper power is not to our present purpose ; still
less, to investigate the infinitely difficult question of its past
operation on the Christian mind. I hope to prosecute my
inquiry into this subject in another work; it being enough
here to mark the forms of ideal error, without historically trac-
ing their extent, and to state generally that my impression is,
up to the present moment, that the best religious art has been
hitherto rather a fruit, and attendant sign, of sincere Christian-
ity than a promoter of or help to it. More, I think, has always
been done for God by few words than many pictures, and more
by few acts than many words.

§ 22. I must not, however, quit the subject without insisting
on the chief practical consequence of what we have observed,
namely, that sacred art, so far from being exhausted, has yet
to attain the development of its highest branches ; and the
task, or privilege, yet remains for mankind, to produce an art
which shall be at once entirely skilful and entirely since e. All
the histories of the Bible are, in my judgment, yet waiting to
be painted. Moses has never been painted ; Elijah never ;
David never (except as a mere ruddy stripling); Deborah
never ; Gideon never ; Isaiah never. What single example
does the reader remember of painting which suggested so much
as the faintest shadow of these people, or of then: deeds?
Strong men in armor, or aged men with flowing beards, he

90 OF THE FALSE IDEAL. [PART lY.

may remember, who, when ho looked at his Louvre or Uffizii
catalogue, he found were intended to stand for David or for
Moses. But does he suppose that, if these pictures had sug-
gested to him the feeblest image of the presence of such men,
he would have passed on, as he assuredly did, to the next pic-
ture, — ^representing, doubtless, Diana and Actaeon, or Cupid
and the Graces, or a gambling quarrel in a pothouse, — with no
sense of pain, or surprise ? Let him meditate over the matter*
and he will find ultimately that what I say is true, and that
religious art, at once complete and sincere, never yet has
existed.

§ 23. It will exist : nay, I believe the era of its birth has
come, and that those bright Turnerian imageries, which the
European public declared to be " dotage," and those calm Pre-
Raphaelite studies which, in like manner, it pronounced " puer-
ility," form the first foundation that has been ever laid for true
sacred art. Of this we shall presently reason farther. But, be
it as it may, if we would cherish the hope that sacred art may,
indeed, arise for 2M, two separate cautions are to be addressed
to the two opposed classes of religionists whose influence will
chiefly retard that hope's accompl shment. The group calling
themselves Evangelical ought no longer to render their religion
an offence to men of the world by associating it only with the
most vulgar forms of art. It is not necessary that they should
admit either music or painting mto religious service ; but, if
they admit either the one or the other, let it not be bad music
nor bad painting : it is certainly in nowise more for Christ's
honor that His praise should be sung discordantly, or His
miracles painted discreditably, than that His word should be
preached ungrammatically. Some Evangelicals, however,
seem to take a morbid pride in the triple degradation.*

§ 24. The opposite class of men, whose natural instincts lead
them to mingle the refinements of art with all the offices and

* I do not know anything more liumiliftting to a man of common secse,
than to open what is called an " Illustrated Bible*' of modern days. See,
for instance, the plates in Brown's Bible (octavo : Edinburgh, 1840) a stan-
dard evangelical edition. Our habit of reducing the Psalms to doggrcl
before we will condescend to sing them, is a parallel abuse. It is marvel-
lous to think that human creatures with tongues and souls should refuse to

VOL. ni.] I. RELIGIOUS. 61

practices of religion, are to be warned, on the contrary, how
they mistake their enjoyments for their duties, or confound
poetry with faith. I admit that it is impossible for one man to
judge another in this matter, and that it can never be said with
certainty how far what seems frivolity may be force, and what
seems the indulgence of the heart may be, indeed, its dedica-'
tion. I am ready to believe that Metastasio, expiring in a
canzonet, may have died better than if his prayer had been in
unmeasured syllables • But, for the most part, it is assuredly
much to be feared lest we mistake a surrender to the charms
of art for one to the sei-vice of God ; and, in the art which we
permit, lest we substitute sentiment for sense, grace for utility.
And for us all there is in this matter even a deeper danger
than that of indulgence. There is the danger of Artistical
Pharisaism. Of all the forms of pride and vanity, as there are
none more subtle, so I believe there are none more sinful, than
those which are manifested by the Pharisees of art. To be
proud of birth, of place, of wit, of bodily beauty, is compara-
tively innocent, just because such pride is more natural, and
more easily detected. But to be proud of our sanctities ; to
pour contempt upon our fellows, because, forsooth, we like to

chant the verse : ** Before Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh, stir np thy
strength, and come and help ns ;" preferring this : —

" Behold, how Benjamin expects,

With Ephraim and Manasseh joined.
In their deliverance, the effects
Of thy resistless strength to find!"

* " En 1*780, Ag6 de quatre-vingt-deux ans, an moment de recevoir le
yiatique, il rassembia ses forces, et chanta, k son Cr6ateur :

* Etemo Genitor
lo t* offro il proprio figlio
Che in pegno del trio amor
Si vuole a me donar.
A lui rivolgi il ciglio,
Mira chi t* offro ; e poi,
Kiega, Signor, se puoi,
Niega di perdonar.* **

— ^De Stendhal, Via de Metastasio,

62 OF THS FAL88 IDEAL. [pART IV.

look at Madonnas in bowers of roses, better than at plain pic-
tures of plain things ; and to make this religious art of ours the
expression of our own perpetual self-complacency, — congratu-
lating ourselves, daj by day, on our purities, proprieties, eleva-
tions, and inspirations, as above the reach of common mortals,
— this I believe to be one of the wickedest and foolishest forms
of human egotism ; and, truly, I had rather, with great, thought-
less, humble Paul Veronese, make the Supper at Emmaus a
background for two children playing with a dog (as, God
knows, men do usually put it in the background to everything,
if not out of sight altogether), than join that school of modern
Germanism which wears its pieties for decoration as women
wear their diamonds, and flaunts the dry fleeces of its phylac-
teries between its dust and the dew of heaven.

VOL. in.] u, PBorANB, 03

CHAPTER V.

OF THE FALSE IDEAL : SECONDLY, PROFANE.

§ 1. Such having been the effects of the pursuit of ideal
oeauty on the religious mind of Europe, we might be tempted
next to consider in what way the same movement affected the
art which concerned itself with profane subject, and, though
that art, the whole temper of modern civilization.

I shall, however, merely glance at this question. It is a
very painful and a very wide one. Its discussion cannot come
properly within the limits, or even within the aim, of a work
like this ; it ought to be made the subject of a separate essay,
and that essay should be written by some one who had passed
less of his life than I have among the mountains, and more of it
among men. But one or two points may be suggested for the
reader to reflect upon at his leisure.

§ 2. I said just now that we might be tempted to consider
how this pursuit of the ideal affected profane art. Strictly
speaking, it brought that art into existence. As long as men
sought for truth first, and beauty secondarily, they cared
chiefly, of course, for the chief truth, and all art was instinct-
ively religious. But as soon as they sought for beauty first,
and truth secondarily, they were punished by losing sight of
spiritual truth altogether, and the profane (properly so called)
schools of art were instantly developed.

The perfect human beauty, which, to a large part of the
community, was by far the most interesting feature in the work
of th6 rising school, might indeed be in some degree consistent
with the agony of Madonnas, and the repentance of Magda-
lenes ; but could not be exhibited in fulness, when the subjects,
however irreverently treated, nevertheless demanded some
decency in the artist, and some gravity in the spectator. The

94 OF THE FALSB IDEAL. [pART IV.

newly acquired powers of rounding limbs, and tinting lips, had
too little scope in the sanctities even of the softest woman-
hood ; and the newly acquired conceptions of the nobility of
nakedness could in no wise be expressed beneath the robes of
the prelate or the sackcloth of the recluse. But the source from
which these ideas had been received afforded also full field for
their expression ; the heathen mythology, which had furnished
the examples of these heights of art, might again become
the subject of the inspirations it had kindled ; — with the
additional advantage that it could now be delighted in, without
being believed ; that its errors might be indulged, unrepressed
by its awe ; and those of its deities whose function was tempta-
tion might be worshipped, in scorn of those whose hands were
charged with chastisement.

So, at least, men dreamed in their foolishness, — to find, as
the ages wore on, that the returning Apollo bore not only his
lyre, but his arrows ; and that at the instant of Gy therea*s resur-
rection to the sunshine, Persephone had reascended her throne
in the deep.

§ 3. Little thinking this, they gave themselves up fearlessly
to the chase of the new delight, and exhausted themselves in
the pursuit of an ideal now doubly false. Formerly, though
they attempted to reach an unnatural beauty, it was yet in re-
presenting historical facts and real persons ; now they sought
for the same unnatural beauty in representing tales which they
knew to be fictitious, and personages who they knew had
never existed. Such a state of things had never before been
found in any nation. Every people till then had painted the
acts of their kings, the triumphs of their armies, the beauty
of their race, or the glory of their gods. They showed the
things they had seen or done ; the beings they truly loved or
faithfully adored. But the ideal art of modern Europe was the
shadow of a shadow ; and with mechanism substituted for
perception, and bodily beauty for spiritual life, it set itself to
represent men it had never seen, customs it had never practised,
and gods in whom it had never believed.

§ 4. Such art could of course have no help from the virtues,
nor claim on the energies of men. It necessarily rooted itself
in their vices and their idleness ; and of their vices principally

VOL. III.] II. PROFANE. 66

in two, pride and sensuality. To the pride, was attached emi-
nently the art of architecture ; to the sensuality, those of paint-
ing and sculpture. Of the fall of architecture, as resultant frc m
the formalist pride of its patrons and designers, I have spolvii
elsewhere. The sensualist ideal, as seen in painting and scrip-
ture, remains to he examined here. But one interesting circuir -
stance is to be observed with respect to the manner of tJ.c
separation of these arts. Pride, being wholly a vice, and r\
every phase inexcusable, wholly betrayed and destroyed the
art which was founded on it. But passion, having some root
and use in healthy nature, and only becoming guilty in excess,
did not altogether destroy the art founded upon it. The
architecture of Falladio is wholly virtueless and despicable-
Not so the Venus of Titian, nor the Antiope of Correggio.

§ 5. We find, then, at the close of the sixteenth century, the
arts of painting and sculpture wholly devoted to entertain the
indolent and satiate the luxurious. To efiect these noble ends,
they took a thousand different forms ; painting, however, of
course being the most complying, aiming sometimes at mere
amusement by deception in landscapes, or minute imitation of
natural objects ; sometimes giving more piquant excitement in
battle-pieces full of slaughter, or revels deep in drunkenness ;
sometimes entering upon serious subjects, for the sake of
grotesque fiends and picturesque infernos, or that it might intro-
duce pretty children as cherubs, and handsome women as Mag-
dalenes and Maries of Egypt, or portraits of patrons in the
character of the more decorous saints : but more frequently, for
direct flatteries of this kind, recurring to Pagan mythology, and
painting frail ladies as goddesses or graces, and foolish kings in
radiant apotheosis ; while, for the earthly delight of the per-
sons whom it honored as divine, it ransacked the records of
luscious fable, and brought back, in fullest depth of dye and
flame of fancy, the impurest dreams of the un-Christian ages.

§ 6. Meanwhile, the art of sculpture, less capable of minister-
ing to mere amusement, was more or less reserved for the
affectations of taste ; and the study of the classical statues
introduced various ideas on the subjects of " purity," " chastity,'^
and " dignity," such as it was possible for people to entertain
who were themselves impure, luxurious, and ridiculous. It is

66 or THE FALBS IDEAL. [pART IV.

a matter of extreme difficulty to explain the exact character of
this modern scalptoresque ideal; but its relation to the tme
ideal may be best understood by considering it as in exact
parallelism with the relation of the word " taste" to the word
" love." Wherever the word " taste" is used with respect to
matters of art, it indicates either that the thing spoken of
belongs to some inferior class of objects, or that the person
speaking has p. false conception of its nature. For, consider
the exact sense in which a work of art is said to be " in good
or bad taste." It does not mean that it is true, or false ; that
it is beautiful, or ugly ; but that it does or does not comply
either with the laws of choice, which are enforced by certain
modes of life ; or the habits of mind produced by a particular
sort of education. It does not mean merely fashionable, that
is, complying with a momentary caprice of the upper classes ;
but it means agreeing with the habitual sense which the most
refined education, common to those upper classes at the period,
gives to their whole mind. Now, therefore, so far as that
education does indeed tend to make the senses delicate, and the
perceptions accurate, and thus enables people to be pleased
with quiet instead of gaudy color, and with graceful instead of
coarse form ; and, by long acquaintance with the best things,
to discern quickly what is fine from what is common ; — so far,
acquired taste is an honorable faculty, and it is true praise of
anything to say it is "in good taste." But so far as this
higher education has a tendency to narrow the sympathies and
harden the heart, diminishing the interest of all beautiful
things by familiarity, until even what is best can hardly please,
and what is brightest hardly entertain ; — so far as it fosters
pride, and leads men to found the pleasure they take in any-
thing, not on the worthiness of the thing, but on the degree in
which it indicates some greatness of their own (as people build
marble porticos, and inlay marble floors, not so much because
they like the colors of marble, or find it pleasant to the foot, as
because such porches and floors are costly, and separated in all
human eyes from plain entrances of stone and timber) ; — so far
as it leads people to prefer gracefulness of dress, manner, and
aspect, to value of substance and heart, liking a well said thing
better than a true thing, and a well trained manner better than

VOL. III.] II. PROrANE. 67

a sincere one, and a delicately formed face better than a good-
natured one, and in all other ways and things setting custom
and semblance above everlasting truth ; — so far, finally, as it
induces a sense of inherent distinction between class and class,
and causes everything to be more or less despised which has
no social rank, so that the affection, pleasure, or grief of a clown
are looked upon as of no interest compared with the affection
and grief of a well-bred man ; —just so far, in al^ these several
ways, the feeling induced by what is called a ** liberal education"
is utterly adverse to the understanding of noble art ; and the
name which is given to the feeling, — Taste, Gout, Gusto, — ^in
all languages, indicates the baseness of it, for it implies that art
gives only a kind of pleasure analogous to that derived from
eating by the palate.

§ 7. Modem education, not in art only, but in all other things
referable to the same standard, has invariably given taste in
this bad sense ; it has given fastidiousness of choice without
judgment, superciliousness of manner without dignity, refine-
ment of habit without purity, grace of expression without
sincerity, and desire of loveliness without love ; and the
modem " Ideal" of high art is a curious mingling of the grace-
fulness and reserve of the drawingroom with a certain measure
of classical sensuality. Of this last element, and the singular
artifices by which vice succeeds in combining it with what
appears to be pure and severe, it would take us long to reason
fully ; I would rather leave the reader to follow out for himself
the consideration of the influence, in this direction, of statues,
bronzes, and paintings, as at present employed by the upper
circles of London, and (especially) Paris; and this not so much
;n the works which are really fine, as in the multiplied coarse
copies of them ; taking the widest range, from Dannaeker's
Ariadne down to the amorous shepherd and shepherdess in
china on the drawingroom time-piece, rigidly questioning, in
each case, how far the charm of the art does indeed depend on
some appeal to the inferior passions. Let it be considered, for
instance, exactly how far the value of a picture of a girPs head
by Greuze would be lowered in the market, if the dress, which
now leaves the bosom bare, were raised to the neck ; and how
far, in the commonest lithograph of some utterly popular sub-

68 or THB FALSE IDEAL. [pART lY.

joct, — for instance, the teaching of Uncle Tom by Eva, — ^tbe
sontiment which is supposed to be excited bj the exhibition of
Christianity in youth is complicated with that which depends
upon Eva*s having a dainty foot and a well-made satin slip-
per ; — and then, having completely determined for himself
how far the element exists, consider farther, whether, when art
is thus frequent (for frequent he will assuredly find it to be) in
its appeal to4he lower passions, it is likely to attain the highest
order of merit, or be judged by the truest standards of judg-
ment. For, of all the causes which have combined, in modern
times, to lower the rank of art, I believe this to be one of the
most fatal ; while, reciprocally, it may be questioned how far
society suffers, in its turn, from the influences possessed over it
by the arts it has degraded. It seems to me a subject of the
very deepest interest to determine what has been the effect
upon the European nations of the great change by which art
became again capable of ministering delicately to the lower
passions, as it had in the worst days of Home ; how far, indeed,
in all ages, the fall of nations may be attributed to art's arriv-
ing at this particular stage among them. I do not mean that,
in any of its stages, it is incapable of being employed for evil,
but that assuredly an Egyptian, Spartan, or Norman was unex-
posed to the kind of temptation which is continually offered by
the delicate painting and sculpture of modern days ; and,
although the diseased imagination might complete the imperfect
image of beauty from, the colored image on the wall,* or the
most revolting thoughts be suggested by the mocking barbarism
of the Gothic sculpture, their hard outline and rude execution
were free from all the subtle treachery which now fills the
flushed canvass and the rounded marble.

§ 8. I cannot, however, pursue this inquiry here. For our
present purpose it is enough to note that the feeling, in itself so
debased, branches upwards into that of which, while no one has
cause to be ashamed, no one, on the other hand, has cause to be
proud, namely, the admiration of physical beauty in the human
form, as distinguished from expression of character. Every one
can easily appreciate the merit of regular features and well-
formed limbs, but it requires some attention, sympathy, and
* Ezek. xxiii, 14.

VOL. m.] II. PROFANE. 69

sense, to detect the charm of passing expression, or life-disci-
plined character. The beauty of the Apollo Belvidere, or
Venus de Medicis, is perfectly palpable to any shallow fine
lady or fine gentleman, though they would have perceived none
in the face of an old weather-beaten St. Peter, or a grey-haired
" Grandmother Lois.'' The knowledge that long study is ne-
cessary to produce these regular types of the human form
renders the facile admiration matter of eager self-complacency ;
the shallow spectator, delighted that he can really, and without
hypocrisy, admire what required much thought to produce, sup-
poses himself endowed with the highest critical faculties, and
easily lets himself be carried into rhapsodies about the " ideal,"
which, when all is said, if they be accurately examined, will be
found literally to mean nothing more than that the figure has
got handsome calves to its legs, and a straight nose.

§ 9. That they do mean, in reality, nothing more than this
may be easily ascertained by watching the taste of the same
persons in other things. The fashionable lady who will write
^ve or six pages in her diary respecting the efiect upon her
mind of such and such an " ideal " in marble, will have her
drawingroom table covered with Books of Beauty, in which
the engravings represent the human form in every possible
aspect of distortion and affectation ; and the connoisseur who,
in the morning, pretends to the most exquisite taste in the
antique, will be seen, in the evening, in his opera-stall, applaud-
ing the least graceful gestures of the least modest figurante.

§ 10. But even this vulgar pursuit of physical beauty (vulgar
in the profoundest sense, for there is no vulgarity like the vul-
garity of education) would be less contemptible if it really
succeeded in its object ; but, like all pursuits carried to inordi-
nate length, it defeats itself. Physical beauty is a noble thing
when it is seen in perfectness ; but the manner in which the
modeiiis pursue their ideal prevents their ever really seeing
what they are always seeking ; for, requiring that all forms
should be regular and faultless, they permit, or even compel,
their painters and sculptors to work chiefly by rule, altering
their models to fit their preconceived notions of what is right.
When such artists look at a face, thf^y do not give it the atten-
tion necessary to discern what beauty is already in its peculiar

70 OF THK FAL8B IDEAL. [PART IV.

features ; but only to see how best it may be altered into some-
thing for which they have themselves laid down the laws.
Nature never unveils her beauty to such a gaze. She keeps
whatever she has done best, close sealed, until it is regarded
with reverence. To the painter who honors her, she will open
a revelation in the face of a street mendicant ; but in the work
of the painter who alters her, she will make Portia become
ignoble and Perdita graceless.

§ 11. Nor is the effect less for evil on the mind of the general
observer. The lover of ideal beauty, with all his conceptions
narrowed by rule, never looks carefully enough upon the fea-
tures which do not come under his law (or any others),, to dis-
cern the inner beauty in them. The strange intricacies about
the lines of the lips, and marvellous shadows and watchfires of
the eye, and wavering traceries of the eyelash, and infinite
modulations of the brow, wherein high humanity is embodied,
are all invisible to him. He finds himself driven back at last,
with all his idealism, to the lionne of the ball-room, whom youth
and passion can as easily distinguish as his utmost critical
science ; whereas, the observer who has accustomed himself to
take human faces as God made them, will often find as much
beauty on a village green as in the proudest room of state, and
as much in the free seats of a church aisle, as in all the sacred
paintings of the Vatican or the Pitti.

§ 12. Then, farther, the habit of disdaining ordinary truth,
and seeking to alter it so as to fit the fancy of the beholder,
gradually infects the mind in all its other operation ; so that it
begins to propose to itself an ideal in history, an ideal in general
narration, an ideal in portraiture and description, and in every
thing else where truth may be painful or uninteresting ; with
the necessary result of more or less weakness, wickedness, and
uselessness in ail that is done or said, with the desire of con-
cealing this painful truth. And, finally, even when truth is not
intentionally concealed, the pursuer of idealism will pass his
days in false and useless trains of thought, pluming himself, all
the while, upon his superiority therein to the rest of mankind.
A modern German, without either invention or sense, seeing a
rapid in a river, will immediately devote the remainder of the
day to the composition of dialogues between amorous water

VOL. HI.] II. PROFANE, 7l

nymphs and unhappy mariners ; while the man of true inven-
tion, power, and sense will, instead, set himself to consider
whether the rocks in the river could have their points knocked
off, or the hoats upon it he made with stronger bottoms.

§ 13. Of this final baseness of the false ideal, its miserable
waste of time, strength, and available intellect of man, by
turning,, as I have said above, innocence of pastime into seri-
ousness of occupation, it is, of course, hardly possible to sketch
out even so much as the leading manifestations. The vain and
haughty projects of youth for future life ; the giddy reveries of
insatiable self exaltation ; the discontented dreams of what
might have been or should be, instead of the thankful under-
standing of what is ; the casting about for sources of interest
in senseless fiction, instead of the real human histories of the
people round us ; the prolongation from age to age of romantic
historical deceptions instead of sifted truth ; the pleasures taken
in fanciful portraits of rural or romantic life in poetry and on
the stage, without the smallest effort to rescue the living rural
population of the world from its ignorance or misery ; the ex-
citement of the feelings by labored imagination of spirits,
fairies, monsters, and demons, issuing in total blindness of heart
and sight to the true presences of beneficent or destructive spi-
ritual powers around us ; in fine, the constant abandonment of
all the straightforward paths of sense and duty, for fear of losing
some of the enticement of ghostly joys, or trampling somewhat
** sopra lor vanita, che par persona ;" all these various forms of
false idealism have so entangled the modern mind, often called,
I Fuppose ironically, practical, that truly I believe there never
yet was idolatry of stock or staff so utterly unholy as this our
idolatry of shadows ; nor can I think that, of those who burnt
incense under oaks, and poplars, and elms, because " the sha-
dow thereof was good," it could in any wise be more justly or
sternly declared than of us — " The wind hath bound them up
in her wings, and they shall be ashamed because of their
sacrifices.' *•

*noftea, chap. iv. 12, 18, and 19.

72 OF THE TRUE IDKAU fpART IV.

OHAPTEE VI.

OF THE TRUE IDEAL : — FIRST, PURIBT.

§ 1. Having tbus glanced at the principal modes in which
the imagination works for evil, we must rapidly note also the
principal directions in which its operation is admissible, even in
changing or strangely combining what is brought within its
sphere.

For hitherto we have spoken as if every change wilfully
wrought by the imagination was an error ; apparently implying
that its only proper work was to summon up the memories of
past events, and the anticipations of future ones, under aspects
which would bear the sternest tests of historical investigation,
or abstract reasoning. And in general this is, indeed, its
noblest work. Nevertheless, it has also permissible functions
peculiarly its own, and certain rights of feigning, and adorn-
ing, and fancifully arranging, inalienable from its nature.
Everything that is natural is, within certain limits, right ; and
we must take care not, in over-severity, to deprive ourselves
of any refreshing or animating power ordained to be in us for
our help.

§ 2. (A). It was noted in speaking above of the Angelican
or passionate ideal, that there was a certain virtue in it depen-
dent on the expression of its loving enthusiasm. (Chap.
IV. § 10.)

(B). In speaking of the pursuit of beauty as one of the
characteristics of the highest art, it was also said that there
were certain ways of showing this beauty by gathering
together, without altering, the finest forms, and marking them
by gentle emphasis. (Chap. iii. § 15.)

(C). And in speaking of the true uses of imagination it was
said, that we might be allowed to create for ourselves, in inno-

CHAP, v.] II. WILTUL. t3

was, represented from the earliest to the present stage of landscape
art.

The earliest manner which comes within onr field of ex-
amination is that of the thirteenth century. Fig. 1. Plate 27 is
an aspen out of the wood in which Absalom is slain, from a Psal-
ter in my own possession, executed, certainly, after the year 1260,
and before 12Y2 : the other trees in the wood being, first, of couxse,
the oak in which Absalom is caught, and a sycamore. All these
trees are somewhat more conventional than is even usual at the
period ; though, for this reason, the more characteristic as exam-
ples of earliest work. There is no great botanical accuracy until
some forty years later (at least in painting) ; so that I cannot be
quite sure, the leaf not being fiat enough at the'base, that this tree
is meant for an aspen: but it is so in all probability; and,
whether it be or not, serves well enough to mark the definiteness
and synmietry of the old art, — a symmetry which, be it always
observed, is kkvxb formal or unbroken. This tree, though it looks
formal enough, branches unequally at the top of the stem. But
the lowest figure in Plate 7, Vol. III. is a better example from the
MS. Sloane, 1975, Brit. Mus. Every plant in that herbarium is
Irawn with some approach to accuracy, in leaf, root, and fiower ;
while yet all are subjected to the sternest conventional arrange-
ment; colored in almost any way that pleases the draughtsman^
and set on quaint grounds of barred color, like bearings on
shields ; * one side of the plant always balancing the other, but
never without some transgression or escape from the law of like-
ness, as in the heads of the cyclamen flower, and several other
parts of this design. It might seem at first, that the root was
more carelessly drawn than Uie rest, and uglier in color ; but this
is in pure conscientiousness. The workman knew that a root was
ugly and earthy ; he would not make it ornamental and delicate.
He would sacrifice his pleasant colors and graceful lines at once
for the radical fact ; and rather spoil his page than flatter a fibre.

§ 17. Here, then, we have the first mediaeval condition of art,
consisting in a fenced, but varied, symmetry ; a perfect definiteness ;
and a love of nature, more or less interfered with by conven-

* CJompare VoL in. Chap. XIY. § 13. Touching the exact degree in
which ignorance or incapacity is mingled with wilM conventionaliam in this
drawing, we shall inquire in the chapters on Vegetation.

4

14 OF T13RNBRIAN MT8TBRT. [PART V

tionalism and imperfect knowledge. Fig. 2 in Plate 27 repre-
sents the next condition of medisBval art, in which the effort at
imitation is contending with the conventional type. This aspen is
from the MS. Cotton, Augustus, a. 5, from which I have already
taken an example of rocks to compare with Leonardo's. There
can be no doubt here about the species of the tree intended,
as throughout the MS. its illuminator has carefully distinguished
the oak, the willow, and the aspen ; and this example, though so
small (it is engraved of the actual size), is very characteristic of the
aspen ramification ; and in one point, of ramification in general,
namely, the division of the tree into two masses, each branching
outwards, not across each other. Whenever a tree divides at first
into two or three nearly equal main branches, the secondary
branches always spring from the outside of the divided ones,
just as, when a tree grows under a rock or wall, it shoots away
from it, never towards it. The beautifiil results of this arrange-
ment we shall trace in the next volume ; meantime in the next
Plate (28) I have drawn the main * ramifications of a real aspen,
growing freely, but in a sheltered place, as far as may be necessary
to illustrate tiie point in question.

§ 18. This example. Pig. 2 in Plate 27 is suflSciently charac-
teristic of the purist mediaeval landscape, though there is somewhat
more leaning to naturalism than is usual at the period. The next
example. Fig. 3, is from Turner's vignette of St. Anne's Hill
(Rogers's Poems, p. 214). Turner almost always groups his trees,
so that I have had difficulty in finding one on a Ismail scale and
isolated, which would be characteristic of him ; nor is this one
completely so, for I had no access to the original vignette, it being,
I believe, among the drawings that have been kept from the pub-
lic, now these four years, because the Chancery lawyers do not
choose to determine the meaning of Turner's perfectly intelligible,
though informal, will ; and Mr. Goodall's engraving, which I have
copied, though right in many respects, is not representative of the
dotted touch by which Turner expressed the aspen foliage. I
have not, however, ventured to alter it, except only by adding the
extremities where they were hidden in the vignette by the trellis-
work above.

* Only the main lines: the outer sprajs have had no pains taken with
them, as I am going to put some leaves on them in next volume.

CHAP, v.] II. WILFUL. 75

The priBcipal difference between the Turnerian aspen and the
purist aspen is, it will be seen, in the expression of lightness and
concision of foliage, and roundness of the tree as a mass ; while
the purist tree, like the thirteenth century one, is still flat. All
attempt at the expression of individual leaves is now gone, the tree
being too far off to justify their delineation ; but the direction of
the light, and its gradations, are carefully studied.

§ 19. Fig. 4 is a toierable facsimile * of a little chalk sketch of
Harding's ; quite inimitable in the quantity of life and truth ob-
tained by about a quarter of a minute's work ; but beginning to
show the faulty vagueness and carelessness of modernism. The
stems, though beautifully free, are not thoroughly drawn or
rounded ; and in the mass of the tree, though well formed, the tre-
mulousness and transparency of leafage are lost. Nor is it
possible, by Harding's manner of drawing, to express such ultimate
truths ; his execution, which, in its way^ no one can at all equal
(the best chalk drawing of Calame and other foreign masters being
quite childish and feeble in comparison), is yet sternly limited in
its reach, being originally based on the assumption that nothing is
to be delicately drawn, and that the method is only good which
insures specious incompletion.

It will be observed, also, that there is a leaning first to one side,
then to the other, in Harding's aspen, which marks the wild
picturesqueness of moHemism as opposed to the quiet but stiff
dignity of the purist (Fig. 2) ; Turner occupying exactly the
intermediate place.

The next example (Fig. 6) is an aspen of Constable's, on the
left in the frontispiece to Mr. Leslie's life of him. Here we have
arrived at the point of total worthlessness, the tree being as flat as
the old purist one, but, besides, wholly false in ramification, idle
and undefined in every respect ; it being, however, just possible
still to discern what the tree is meant for, and therefore, the type
of the worst modernism not being completely established.

§ 20. Fig. 6 establishes this type, being the ordinary condition
of tree-treatment in our blotted water-color drawings ; the nature
of the tree being entirely lost sight of, and no accurate knowledge,
of any kind, possessed or communicated.

* It is quite impossible to fascimile good free work. Both Turner and
Harding suffer grievously ia this plate.

Y6 OF TURNERIAN MYBTERT. [PART V.

Thus, from the extreme of definiteness and light, in the thir-
teenth century (the middle of the Dark Ages !), we pass to the
extreme of uncertainty and darkness, in the middle of the nine-
teenth century.

As, however, the definite medieval work has some faults, so the
indefinite modern work has some virtues, its very uncertainty
enabling it to appeal pleasantly to the imagination (though in an
inky manner, as described above. Vol. III. Chap, x, § 10), and
sometimes securing qualities of color which could no otherwise be
obtained. It ought, however, if we would determine its true
standing, to be compared, not with the somewhat forced and
narrow decision of the thirteenth century, but with the perfect and
well-informed decision of Albert Durer and his fellow-workmen.
For the proper representation of these there was no room in this
plate ; so in Plate 25, above, on each side of the daguerreotyped
towers of Fribourg, I have given. Fig. 1, a Dureresque, and Fig. 3,
a Blottesque, version of the intermediate wall. The latter version
may, perhaps, be felt to have some pleasantness in its apparent
ease ; and it has a practical advantage, in its capability of being
executed in a quarter of a minute, while the Dureresque statement
cannot be made in less than a quarter of an hour. But the latter
embraces not only as much as is worth the extra time, but even
an infinite of contents, beyond and above the other, for the other
is in no single place clear in its assertion of •n^hing ; whereas the
Dureresque work, asserting clearly many most interesting facts
about the grass on the ledges, the bricks of the windows, and the
growth of the foliage, is for ever a useful and trustworthy record ;
the other for ever an empty dream. If it is a beautiful dream,
full of lovely color and good composition, we will not quarrel with
it ; but it can never be so, unless it is founded first on the Durer-
esque knowledge, and suggestive of it, through all its own mystery
or incompletion. So that by all students the Dureresque is the
manner to be first adopted, and calmly continued as long as
possible ; and if their inventive instincts do not, in after life, force
tliem to swifter or more cloudy execution, — if at any time it
becomes a matter of doubt with them how fer to surrender their
gift of accuracy, — let them be assured that it is best always to
err on the siie of clearness; to live in the illumination of the
thirteenth century rather than the mysticism of the nineteenth,

CHAP, v.] II. WILFUL. 77

and vow themselves to the cloister rathe r than to lose themselves
in the desert.

§ 21. I am afraid the reader must be tired of this matter ; and
yet there is one question more which I must for a moment touch
upon, in conclusion, namely, the mystery of clearness itself. In
an Italian twilight, when, sixty or eighty miles away, the ridge of
the Western Alps rises in its dark and serrated blue against the
crystalline vermilion, there is still unsearchableness, but an
nnsearchableness without cloud or concealment, — an infinite un-
known, but no sense of any veil or interference between us and it :
we are separated from it not by any anger or storm, not by any
vain and fading vapor, but only by the deep infinity of the thing
itself. I find that the great religious painters rejoiced in that kind
of unknowableness, and in that only ; and I feel that even if they
had had all the power to do so, still they would not have put rosy
mists and blue shadows behind their sacred figures, but only the
far-away sky and cloudless mountains. Probably the right con-
clusion is that the clear and cloudy mysteries are alike noble ; but
that the beauty of the wreaths of frost mist, folded over banks of
greensward deep in dew, and of the purple clouds of evening, and
the wreaths of fitftil vapor gliding tiirough groves of pine, and
irised around the pillars of waterfalls, is more or less typical of the
kind of joy which we should take in the imperfect knowledge
granted to the earthly life, while the serene and cloudless mysteries
set forth that belonging to the redeemed life. But of one thing I
am well assured, that so far as the clouds are regarded, not as
concealing the truth of other things, but as themselves true and
separate creations, they are not usually beheld by us with enough
honor; we have too great veneration for cloudlessness. My
reasons for thinking this I will give in the next chapter ; here we
have, I believe, examined as far as necessary, the general principles
on which Turner worked, and justified his adoption of them so far
as they contradicted preceding practice.

It remains for us to trace, with more observant patience, the
ground which was marked out in the first volume ; and, whereas
in that volume we hastily compared the truth of Turner with that
of preceding landscapists, we shall now, as closely as possible, examine
the range of what he himself has done and felt, and the way in which
it is likely to influence the ftiture acts and thoughts of men.

^8 ' OF TURNKRIAN MYSTERY. [PART V.

§ 22, And I stall attempt to do this, first, by examining what
the real effect of the things painted — clouds, or mountains, or what-
ever else they may be — is, or ought to be, in general, on men's
minds, showing the grounds of their beauty or impressiyeness as
best I can ; and then examining how fer Turner seems to have
understood these reasons of beauty, and how fiar his work inter-
prets, or can take the place of nature. But in doing this, I shall,
for the sake of convenience, alter the arrangement which I fol-
lowed in the first volume ; and instead of examining the sky first,
treat of it last ; because, in many illustrations which I must give
of other things, I shall have to introduce pieces of sky background
which will all be useful for reference when I can turn back to
them from the end of the book, but which I could not refer to in
advance without anticipating all my other illustrations. Never-
theless, some points which I have to note respecting the meaning
of the sky are so intimately connected with the subjects we have
just been examining, that I cannot properly defer their considera-
tion to another place; and I shall state them, therefore, in the
next chapter, afterwards proceeding, in the order I adopted in the
first volume, to examine the beauty of mountains, water, and
vegetation.

CHAPTER VI

THE IIRMAMXNT.

§ 1. Thb task which we now enter apon, as explained in the
close of the preceding chapter, is the ascertaining as fiur as possible
what the proper effect of the natural beauty of different objects
ought to be on the human mind, and the degree in which this
nature of theirs, and true influence, have been understood and
transmitted by Turner.

I mean to begin with the mountains, for the sake of convenience
in illustration; but, in the proper order of thought, the clouds
ought to be considered first ; and I think it will be well, in this
intermediate chapter, to bring to a close that line of reasoning by
which we have gradually, as I hope, strengthened the defences
around the love of mystery which distinguishes our modem art ;
and to show, on final and conclusive authority, what noble things
these clouds are, and with what feeling it seems to be intended by
their Creator that we should contemplate them.

§ 2. The account given of the stages of Creation in the first
chapter of Genesis, is in every respect clear and intelligible to the
simplest reader, except in the statement of the work of the second
day. I suppose that this statement is passed over by careless
readers without an endeavor to understand it ; and contemplated
by simple and faithfol readers as a sublime mystery, which was
not intended to be understood. But there is no mystery in any
other part of the chapter, and it seems to me unjust to conclude
that any was intended here.

And the passage ought to be peculiarly interesting to us, as
being the fii-st in the Bible in which the heavens are named, and
the only one in which the word " Heaven," all important as that
word is to our understanding of the most precious promises of
Scripture, receives a definite explanation.

Let us, therefore, see whether, by a little careful comparison of

80 THE FIRMAMXNT. [PART V.

the verse with other passages in which the word occurs, we may
not be able to arrive at as clear an inderstanding of this portion
of the chapter as of the rest.

§ 3. In the first place, the English word " Firmament " itself is
obscure and useless; because we never employ it but as a synonym
of heaven ; it conveys no other distinct idea to us ; and the verse,
though from our familiarity with it we imagine that it possesses
meaning, has in reality no more point or value than if it were
written, " God said let there be a something in* the midst of the
waters, and God called the something Heaven "

But the marginal reading, " Expansion," has definite value ; and
the statement that " God said, let there be an expansion in the
midst of the waters, and God called the expansion Heaven," has an
apprehensible meaning.

§ 4. Accepting this expression as the one intended, we have
next to ask what expansion there is, between two waters,
describable by the term Heaven. Milton adopts the term " ex-
panse ;"* but he understands it of the whole volume of the air
which surrounds the earth. Whereas, so far as we can tell, there
is no water beyond the air, in the fields of space ; and the whole
expression of division of waters from waters is thus rendered
valueless.

§ 5. Now, with resp'ect to this whole chapter, we must remember
always that it is intended for the instruction of all mankind, not for
the learned reader only ; and that, therefore, the most simple and
natural interpretation is the likeliest in general to be the true one.
An unscientific reader knows little about the manner in which the
volume of the atmosphere surrounds the earth ; but I imagine that
he could hardly glance at the sky when rain was falling in the
distance, and see the level line of the bases of the clouds from
which the shower descended, without being able to attach an in-
stant and easy meaning to the words " Expansion in the midst of
the waters." And i^ having once seized this idea, he proceeded
to examine it more accurately, he would perceive at once, if he had

♦ *' Gk)d made

The firmament) ezpanse of liquid, pure^
Transparent) elemental air, diffused
In circuit to the uttermost oonvez
Of this great round." Paradise Losi^ book viL

CHAP. YI.] THE FIRMAMKNT. 81

ever noticed anything of the nature of cloads, that the level line
of their bases did indeed most severely and stringently divide
" waters from waters," that is to sayj divide water in its collective
and tangible state, from water in its divided and aerial state ; or
the waters which fall and fiow^ from those which rise and float.
Next, if we try this interpretation in the theological sense of the
word Heaven^ and examine whether the clouds are spoken of as
God's dwelling-place, we find God going before the Israelites in a
pillar of cloud ; revealing Himself in a cloud on Sinai ; appearing
in a cloud on the mercy seat, filling the Temple of Solomon with
the cloud when its dedication is accepted ; appearing in a great
cloud to Ezekiel ; ascending into a cloud before the eyes of the
disciples on Mount Olivet ; and in like manner returning to Judg-
ment. ^ Behold, he cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see
him." '* Then shall they see the son of man coming in the clouds
of heaven, with power and great glory."* While farther, the
'^ clouds" and ^* heavens" are used as interchangeable words in
those Psalms which most distinctly set forth the power of God :
" He bowed the heavens also, and came down ; he made darkness
pavilions round about him, dark waters, and thick clouds of the
skies." And, again : " Thy mercy, oh Lord, is in the heavens,
and thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds." And, again:
" His excellency is over Israel, and his strength is in the clouds."
Again: "The clouds poured out water, the skies sent out
a sound, the voice of thy thunder was in the heaven." Again :
"Clouds and darkness are round about him, righteousness and
judgment are the habitation of his throne ; the heavens declare his
righteousness, and all the people see his glory."

§ 6. In all these passages the meaning is unmistakeable, if they
possess definite meaning at all. We are too apt to take them
merely for sublime and vague imagery, and therefore gradually to
lose the apprehension of their life and power. The expression,
" He bowed the Heavens," for instance, is, I suppose, received by
most readers as a magnificent hyperbole, having reference to some
peculiar and fearful manifestation of God's power to the writer of

* The reader may refer to the follo-ving texts, which it is needless to quote :
Exod. xiii. 21, ^^± 10, xix. 9, xxiv. 16, xxxiv. 6. Levit xvi. 3, Num. x.
34, Judges V. 4, 1 E^ngs viiL 10, Ezek. L 4^ Dan. yii, 13, Matt xxiv. 80,
1 Thess. iv. 17, Rev. i 7.

4*

82 THE FIRMAMENT. [pART T.

the Psalm in which the words occur. But the expression either
has plain meaning, or it has no meaning. Understand by the term
" Heavens" the compass of infinite space around the earth, and the
expression, "bowed the Heavens," however sublime, is wholly
without meaning ; infinite space cannot be bent or bowed. But
understand by the " Heavens" the veil of clouds above the earth,
and the expression is neither hyperbolical nor obscure ; it is pure,
plain, and accurate truth, and it describes God, not as revealing
Himself in any peculiar way to David, but doing what He is still
doing before our own eyes day by day. By accepting the words
in their simple sense, we are thus led to apprehend the immediate
presence of the Deity, and His purpose of manifesting Himself as
near us whenever the storm-cloud stoops Jipon its course ; while
by our vague and inaccurate acceptance of the words we remove
the idea of His presence fw from us, into a region which we can
neither see nor know ; and gradually, from the close realization of
a living God who " maketh the clouds his chariot," we refine and
explain ourselves into dim and distant suspicion of an inactive
God, inhabiting inconceivable places, and fading into the multitu-
dinous formalisms of the laws of Nature.

§ Y. All errors of this kind — and in the present day we are in
constant and grievous danger of falling into them — arise from the
originally mistaken idea that man can, "by searching, find out
God — ^find out the Almighty to perfection ;" that is to say, by help
of courses of reasoning and accumulations of science, apprehend
the nature of the Deity in a more exalted and more accurate man-
ner than in a state of comparative ignorance ; whereas it is clearly
necessary, from the beginning to the end of time, that God's way
of revealing Himself to His creatures should be a simple wajj
which all those creatures may understand. Whether taught or
untaught, whether of mean capacity or enlarged, it is necessary
that communion with their Creator should be possible to all ; and
the admission to such communion must be rested, not on their
having a knowledge of astronomy, but on their having a human
soul. In order to render this communion possible, the Deity has
stooped from His throne, and has not only, in the person of the Son,
taken upon Him the veil of our human Jleshj but, in the person of
jihe Father, taken upon Him the veil of our human thoughts, and
permijited us, by His own spoken authority, to conceive Him sim-

CHAP. VI.] THS FIRMAMENT. 83

ply and clearly as a loving Father and Friend ; — a being to be
walked with and reasoned with ; to be moved by oar entreaties,
angered by our rebellion, alienated by our coldness, pleased by oar
love, and glorified by our labor ; and, finally, to be beheld in im-
mediate and active presence in all the powers and changes of cre-
ation. This conception of God, which is the child's, is evidently
the only one which can be universal, and therefore the only one
which for us can be true. The moment that, in our pride of
heart, we refuse to accept the condescension of the Almighty, and
desire Him, instead of stooping to hold our hands, to rise up before
us into His glory, — we hoping that by standing on a grain of dust
or two of human knowledge higher than our fellows, we may
behold the Creator as He rises, — God takes us at our word ;
He rises, into His own invisible and inconceivable majesty ; He
goes forth upon the ways which are not our ways, and retires
into the thoughts which are not our thoughts ; and we are
left alone. And presently we say in our vain hearts, ^There is no
God."

§ 8. I would desire, therefore, to receive God's account of His
own creation as under the ordinary limits of human knowledge
and imagination it would be received by a simply minded man ;
and finding that the " heavens and the earth" are spoken of always
as having something like equal relation to each other (" thus the
heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them"),
I reject at once all idea of the term ^^ Heavens" being intended to
signify the infinity of space inhabited by countless worlds ; for be-
tween those infinite heavens and the particle of sand, which not
the earth only, but the sun itself, with all the solar system, is in
relation to them, no relation of equality or comparison could be
inferred. But I suppose the heavens to mean that part of creation
which holds equal companionship with our globe ; I understand
the " rolling of those heavens together as a scroll" to be an equal
and relative destruction with the " melting of the elements in fer-
vent heat ;" * and I understand the making the firmament to

* Compare also Job, xzxvi 29, " The spreading of the clouds, and the
noise of his tdbemade;" and zzxviiL 33, ** Knowest thou the ordinances of
heaven ? canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth ? canst thou lift up
tby voice to the clouds?"

Observe that in the passage of Addison^s well known hymn —

84 THE FIRMAMENT. [pART ▼

BTgnify that, so far as man is concerned, most magnificent
ordinance of the clouds ; — ^the ordinance, that as the great plain of
waters was formed on the face of the earth, so also a plain of
waters should be stretched along the height of air, and the face of
the cloud answer the face of the ocean ; and that this upper and
heavenly plain should be of waters, as it were, glorified in their na-
ture, no longer quenching the fire, but now bearing fire in their
own bosoms; no longer murmuring only when the winds raise
them or rocks divide, but answering each other with their own
voices from pole to pole; no longer restrained by established
shores, and guided through unchanging channels, but going forth
ftt their pleasure like the armies of the angels, and choomng their
encampments upon the heights of the hills ; no longer hurried
downwards for ever, moving but to tall, nor lost in the lightless
accumulation of the abyss, but covering the east and west with the
waving of their wings, and robing the gloom of the farther infinite
with a vesture of divers colors, of which the threads are purple and
scarlet, and the embroideries flame.

§ 9. This, I believe, is the ordinance of the firmament ; and it
seems to me tiiat in the midst of the material nearness of these
heavens God means us to acknowledge His own immediate presence
as visiting, judging, and blessing us. "The earth shook, the
heavens also dropped, at the presence of God." " He doth set his
bow in the cloud," and thus renews, in the sound of every droop-
ing swathe of rain, his promises of everlasting love. " In them
hath he set a tabernacle for the sun ;" whose burning ball, which
without the firmament would be seen as an intolerable and scorch-
ing circle in the blackness of vacuity, is by that firmament
surrounded with gorgeous service, and tempered by mediatorial

" The spacious firmament on high,
With all the blue ethereal skj,
And spangled heavens, a shining (rame,
Their great Or^nal proclaim" —
the writer has clearly the true distinctions in his mind ; he does not use his
words, as we too often accept them, in vain tautology. By the spacious fir-
mament he means the douds, using the word spacious to mark the true
meaning of the Hebrew term : the bhie eihereai sky is the real air or ether,
blue above the clouds : the heavens are the starry spaoe, for which he usee
this word, less accurately, indeed, than the others, but as the only one availa-
ble for this meaning.

CHAP, vl] the firmamknt. 8d

ministries; by the firmament of clouds the golden pavement is
spread for his chariot wheels at morning ; by the firmament of
clouds the temple is built for hispresence to fill with light at noon ;
by the firmament of clouds the purple veil is closed at evening
round the sanctuary of his rest ; by the mists of the firmament his
implacable light is divided, and its separated fierceness appeased
into the soft blue that fills the depth of distance with its bloom,
and the flush with which the mountains bum as they drink the
overflowing of the dayspring. And in this tabernacling of the
unendurable sun with men, through the shadows of the firmament,
God would seem to set forth the stooping of His own majesty to
men, upon the throne of the firmament As the Creator of all the
worlds, and the Inhabiter of eternity, we cannot behold Him ; but,
as the Judge of the earfli and tiie Preserver of men, those heavens
are indeed His dwelling-place. " Swear not, neither by heaven,
for it is God's throne ; nor by the earth, for it is his footstool."
And all those passings to and fro of fruitful shower and grateful
shade, and all those visions of silver palaces built about the hori-
zon, and voices of moaning winds and threatening thunders, and
glories of colored robe and cloven ray, are but to deepen in our
hearts the acceptance, and distinctness, and deamess of the simple
words, " Our Father, which art in heaven."

CHAPTER VII.

THB DRY LAND.

§ 1. Having thus arrived at some apprehension of the trae
meaning and noble offices of the clouds, we leave fsirther inquiry
into their aspects to another time, and follow the fixed arrange-
ment of our subject ; first, to the crests of the mountains. Of
these also, having seen in our review of ancient and modem land-
scape various strange differences in the way men looked upon them,
it will be well in the outset to ascertain, as far as may be, the true
meaning and office.

The words which marked for us the purpose of the clouds are
followed immediately by those notable ones : —

" And God said. Let the waters which are under the heaven
be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land
appear"

We do not, perhaps, often enough consider the deep significance
of this sentence. We are too apt to receive it as the description
of an event vaster only in its extent, not in its nature, than the
compelling the Red Sea to draw back, that Israel might pass by.
We imagine the Deity in like manner rolling the waves of the
greater ocean together on a heap, and setting bars and doors to
them eternally.

But there is a far deeper meaning than this in the solemn
words of Genesis, and in the correspondent verse of the Psalm,
"His hands prepared the dry land." . Up to that moment the
earth had been void, for it had been without form. The command
that the waters should be gathered was the command that the
earth should be sculptured. The sea was not driven to his place
in suddenly restrained rebellion, but withdrawn to his place in
perfect and patient obedience. The dry land appeared, not in level
sands, forsaken by the surges, which those surges might again

CHAP, yn.] THE DRF LAND. 87

claim for their own ; but in range beyond range of swelling hill
and iron rock, for ever to claim kindred with the firmament, and
be companioned by the clouds of heaven.

§ 2. What space of time was in reality occupied by the " day"
of Genesis, is not, at present, of any importance for us to consider.
By what furnaces of fire the adamant was melted, and by what
wheels of earthquake it was torn, and by what teeth of glacier
and weight of sea-waves it was engraven and finished into its per-
fect form, we may perhaps hereafter endeavor to conjecture ; but
here, as in few words the work is summed by the historian, so in few
broad thoughts it should be comprehended by us ; and as we read
the mighty sentence, " Let the dry land appear," we should try
to follow the finger of God, as it engraved upon the stone tables
of the earth the letters and the law of its everlasting form ; as,
gulf by gul^ the channels of the deep were ploughed ; and cape
by cape, the lines were traced, with Divine foreknowledge, of the
shores that were to limit the nations; and chain by chain, the
mountain walls were lengthened forth, and their foundations fast-
ened for ever ; and the compass was set upon the fiice of the depth,
and the fields, and the highest part of the dust of the world were
made ; and the right hand of Christ first strewed the snow on
Lebanon, and smoothed the slopes of Calvary.

§ 3. It is not, I repeat, always needful, in many respects it is
not possible, to conjecture the manner, or the time, in which this
work was done ; but it is deeply necessary for all men to consider
the magnificence of the accomplished purpose, and the depth
of the wisdom and love which are manifested in the ordinances
of the hills. For observe, in order to bring the world into the
form which it now bears, it was not mere sculpture that was
needed ; the mountains could not stand for a day unless they
were formed of materials altogether different from those which
constitute the lower hills, and the surfaces of the valleys. A
harder substance had to be prepared for every mountain chain ;
yet not so hard but that it might be capable of crumbling down
into earth fit to nourish the alpine forest and the alpine flower ;
not sio hard but that, in the midst of the utmost majesty of its
enthroned strength, there should be seen on it the seal of death,
and the writing of the same sentence that had gone forth against
the human frame, "Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt

-I' 'wmm9wmi9^f^mm'

88 THE DRY LAND. [PART V

return."* And with this perishable substance the most majestic
forms were to be framed that were consistent with the safety
of man ; and the peak was to be lifted, ?.nd the cliff rent, as high
and as steeply as was possible, in order yet to permit the shepherd
to feed his flocks upon the slope, and the cottage to nestle beneath
their shadpw.

§ 4. And observe, two distinct ends were to be accomplished
in the doing this. It was, indeed, absolutely necessary that such
eminences should be created, in order to fit the earth in any wise
for human habitation ; for without mountains the air could not be
purified, nor the flowing of the rivers sustained, and the earth must
have become for the most part desert plain, or stagnant marsh.
But the feeding of the rivers and the purifying of the winds are
the least of the services appointed to the hills. To fill the thirst
of the human heart for the beauty of God's working, — to startle
its lethargy with the deep and pure agitation of astonishment, —
are their higher missions. They are as a great and noble archi-
tecture ; first giving shelter, comfort, and rest ; and covered also
with mighty sculpture and painted legend. It is impossible to
examine in their connected system the features of even the most
ordinary mountain scenery, without concluding that it has been
prepared in order to unite as far as possible, and in the closest
compass, every .means of delighting and sanctifying the heart
of man. ^ As &r as possible ;" that is, as far as is consistent
with the fulfilment of the sentence of condemnation on the whole
earth. Death must be upon the hills ; and the cruelty of the
tempests smite them, and the briar and thorn spring up upon
them : but they so smite, as to bring their rocks into the fairest
forms ; and so spring, as to make the very desert blossom as the
rose. Even among our own hills of Scotland and Cumberland,
though often too barren to be perfectly beautiful, and always too
low to be perfectly sublime, it is strange how many deep sources
of delight are gathered into the compass of their glens and vales ;
and how, down to the most secret cluster of their far-away flowers,
and the idlest leap of their straying streamlets, the whole heart

* " Surely the mountain felling cometh to nought^ and the rock is removed
out of his place. The waters wear the stones : thou washest away the things
which grow out of the dust of the earth; and thou destroyest the hope of
man." — Jo6, xiv. 18, 19.

CHAP. Vn.] THK DRY LAND. 89

of Nature seums thirBting to give, and Atill to give, shedding forth
her everlasting beneficence with a profusion so patient, so passion-
ate, that our utmost observance and thankfulness are but, at last,
neglect of her nobleness, and apathy to her love. But among the
true mountains of the greater orders the Divine purpose of appeal
at once to all the i^culties of the human spirit becomes still more
manifest. Inferior hills ordinarily interrupt, in some degree, the
richness of the valleys at their feet ; the grey downs of southern
England, and treeless coteaux of central France, and grey swells
of Scottish moor, whatever peculiar charm they may possess in
themselves, are at least destitute of those which belong to the
woods and fields of the lowlands. But the great mountains lift
the lowlands on their tides. Let the reader imagine, first, the
appearance of the most varied plain of some richly cultivated
country ; let him imagine it dark with graceful woods, and soft
with deepest pastures ; let him fill the space of it, to the utmost
horizon, with innumerable and changeful incidents of scenery and
life ; leading pleasant streamlets through its meadows, strewing clus-
ters of cottages beside their banks, tracing sweet footpaths through
its avenues, and animating its fields with happy flocks, and slow
wandering spots of cattle ; and when he has wearied himself with
endless imagining, and left no space without some loveliness of its
own, let him conceive all this great plain, with its infinite trea-
sures of natural beauty and happy human life, gathered up in
God's hands from one edge of the horizon to the other, like a
woven garment ; and shaken into deep falling folds, as the robes
droop from a king's shoulders ; all its bright rivers leaping into
cataracts along the hollows of its fall, and all its forests rearing
themselves aslant against its slopes, as a rider rears himself back
when his horse plunges; and all its villages nestling themselves
into the new windings of its glens ; and all its pastures thrown
into steep waves of greensward, dashed with dew along the edges
of their folds, and sweeping down into endless slopes, with a cloud
here and there lying quietly, half on the grass, half in the air ;
and he will have as yet, in all this lifted world, only the foundation
of cue of the great Alps. And whatever is lovely in the lowland
scenery becomes lovelier in this change : the trees which grew
heavily and stiffly from the level line of plain assume strange
curves of strength and grace as they bend themselves against the

90 THE DRF LAND. [PART V.

mountain side ; they breathe more freely, and toss their branches
more carelessly as each climbs higher, looking to the clear light
above the topmost leaves of its brother tree : the flowers which
on the arable plain fell before the plough, now find out for them-
selves unapproachable places, where year by year they gather
into happier fellowship, and fear no evil ; and the streams which
in the level land crept in dark eddies by unwholesome banks,
now move in showers of silver, and are clothed with rainbows,
and bring health and life wherever the glance of their waves can
reach.

§ 5. And although this beauty seems at first, in its wildness,
inconsistent with the service of man, it is, in fact, more necessary
to his happy existence than all the level and easily subdued land
which he rejoices to possess. It seems almost an insult to the read-
er's intelligence to ask him to dwell (as if they could be doubted) on
the uses of the hills; and yet so little, until lately, have those
uses been understood, that, in the seventeenth century, one of the
most enlightened of the religious men of his day (Fleming), him-
self a native of a mountain country, casting about for some reason
to explain to himself the existence of mountains, and prove their
harmony with the general perfectness of the providential govern-
ment of creation, can light upon this reason only, "They are
inhabited by the beasts,"

S 6. First use It may not, therefore, even at this day, be altogether
To'^e^^mi profitless or unnecessary to review briefly the nature
tion to water, of the three great offices which mountain ranges are
appointed to fulfil, in order to preserve the health and increase
the happiness of mankind. Their first use is of course to give
motion to water. Every fountain and river, from the inch-deep
streamlet that crosses the village lane in trembling clearness,
to the massy and silent march of the everlasting multitude of
waters in Amazon or Ganges, owe their play, and purity, and
power, to the ordained elevations of the earth. Gentle or steep,
extended or abrupt, some determined slope of the earth's
surface is of course necessary, before any wave can so much as
overtake one sedge in its pilgrimage; and how seldom do we
enough consider, as we walk beside the margins of our pleasant
brooks, how beautiful and wonderful is that ordinance, of which
every blade of grass that waves in their clear water is a perpetual

CHAP. VII.] THK DRT LAND. 91

sign ; that the dew and rain fallen on the &ce of the earth shdll
find no resting-place ; shall find, on the contrary, fixed channels
traced for them, from the ravines of the central crests down which
they roar in sadden ranks of foam, to the dark hollows beneath
the banks of lowland pasture, round which they must circle slowly
among the stems and beneath the leaves of the lilies ; paths pre-
pared for them, by which, at some appointed rate of journey, they
must evermore descend, sometimes slow and sometimes swift, but
never pausing ; the daily portion of the earth they have to glide
over marked for them at each successive sunrise, the place which
has known them knowing them no more, and the gateways of
guarding mountains opened for them in clefb and chasm, none
letting Uiem in their pilgrimage ; and, from far oflf, the great heart
of the sea calling them to itself! Deep calleth unto deep. I
know not which of the two is the more wonderful, — that calm,
gradated, invisible slope of the champaign land, which gives motion
to the stream ; or that passage cloven for it through the ranks of
hill, which, necessary for the health of the land immediately around
them, would yet, unless so supematurally divided, have fatally
intercepted the flow of the waters from far-off countries. When'
did the great spirit of the river first knock at those adamantine
gates ? When did the porter open to it, and cast his keys away
for ever, lapped in whirling sand? I am not satisfied — no one
should be satisfied — ^with that vague answer, — the river cut its way.
Not so. The river found its way. I do not see that rivers, in
their own strength, can do much in cutting their way; they are
nearly as apt to choke their channels up, as to carve them out.
Only give a river some little sudden power in a valley, and see
how it will use it. Cut itself a bed ? Not so, by any means, but
fill up its bed, and look for another, in a wild, dissatisfied, incon-
sistent manner. Any way, rather than the old one, will better
please it ; and even if it is banked up and forced to keep to the
old one, it will not deepen, but do all it can to raise it, and leap
out of it. And although, wherever water has a steep fall, it will
swiftly cut itself a bed deep into the rock or ground, it will not,
when the rock is hard, cut a wider channel than it actually needs;
BO that if the existing river beds, through ranges of mountain, had
in reality been cut by the streams, they would be found, wherever
the rocks are hard, only in the form of narrow and profound

92 . THE DRT LAND. [PART V.

ravines, — ^like the well-known channel of the Niagara, below the
fall ; not in that of extended valleys. And the actual work of true
mountain rivers, though often much greater in proportion to their
body of water than that of the Niagara, is quite insignificant when
compared with the area and depth of the valleys through which
they flow ; so that, although in many cases it appears that those
larger valleys have been excavated at earlier periods by more
powerftd streams, or by the existing stream in a more powerful
condition, still the great fact remains always equally plain, and
equally admirable, that, whatever the "nature and duration of the
agencies employed, the earth was so shaped at first as to direct the
currents of its rivers in the manner most healthy and convenient
for man. The valley of the Rhone may, though it is not likely,
have been in great part excavated in early time by torrents a
thousand times larger than the Rhone ; but it could not have been
excavated at all, unless the mountains had been thrown at first
into two chains, between which the torrents were set to work in a
given direction. And it is easy to conceive how, under any less
beneficent dispositions of their masses of hill, the continents of
the earth might either have been covered with enormous lakes, as
parts of North America actually are covered ; or have become
wildernesses of pestiferous marsh ; or lifeless plains, upon which
the water would have dried as it fell, leaving them for great part
of the year desert. Such districts do exist, and exist in vastness :
the whole earth is not prepared for the habitation of man ; only
certain small portions are prepared for him, — ^the houses, as it
were, of the human race, from which they are to look abroad upon
the rest of the world, not to wonder or complain that it is not all
house, but to be grateful for the kindness of the admirable build-
ing, in the house itself, as compared with the rest. It would be as
absurd to think it an evil that all the world is not fit for us to in-
habit, as to think it an evil that the globe is no larger than it is.
As much as we shall ever need is evidently assigned to us for our
dwelling-place ; the rest, covered with rolling wares or drifting
sands, fretted with ice or crested with fire, is set before us for con-
templation in an uninhabitable magnificence ; and that part which
we are enabled to inhabit owes its fitness for human life chiefly to
its morntain ranges, which, throwing the superfluous rain off as it
falls, collect it in streams or lakes, and guide it into given places,

CHAP. Vn.] THE DRY LAND. , 93

and in given direetions ; so that men can build their cities in the
midst of fields which they know will be always fertile, and esta-
blish the lines of their cotnmerce upon streams which will not
fail.

§ 7. Nor is this giving of motion to water to be considered as
confined only to the surface of the earth. A no less important
ftmction of the hills is in directing the flow of the fountains and
springs, from subterranean reservoirs. There is no miraculous
springing up of water out of the ground at our feet ; but every
fountain and well is supplied from a reservoir among the hills, so
placed as to involve some slight fall or pressure, enough to secure
the constant flowing of the stream. And the incalculable blessing
of the power given to us in most valleys, of reaching by excavation
some point whence the water will rise to the sur&ce of the ground
in perennial flow, is entirely owing to the concave disposition of
the beds of clay or rock raised from beneath the bosom of the val
ley into ranks of enclosing hills.

§ 8. The second great use of mountains is to maintain a con-
stant change in the currents and nature of the air. g^^n^i^g^
Such change would, of course, have been partly caused To gire mo
by differences in soils and vegetation, even if the earth
had been level ; but to a &r less extent than it is now by the
chains of hills, which exposing on one side their masses of rock to
the full heat of the sun (increased by the angle at which the rays
strike on the slope), and on the other casting a soft shadow for
leagues over the plains at their feet, divide the earth not only into
districts, but into climates, and cause perpetual currents of air to
traverse their passes, and ascend or descend their ravines, altering
both the temperature and nature of the air as it passes, in a thou-
sand different ways ; moistening it with the spray of their water-
falls, sucking it down and beating it hither and thither in the
pools of their torrents, closing it within clefts and caves, wher^ the
sunbeams never reach, till it is as cold as November mists, then
sending it forth again to breathe softly across the slopes of velvet
fields, or to be scorched among sunburnt shales and grassless
crags; then drawing it back in moaning swirls through clefts
of ice, and up into dewy wreaths above the snow-fields ; then
piercing it with strange electric darts and flashes of mountain fire,
and tossing it high in fiwtastic storm-cloud, as the dried grass is

94 THE DRY LAND. [pART V

tossed by the mower, only suffering it to depart at last, when
chastened and pnre, to refresh the faded air of the far-off plains.

§ 9. The third great use of mountains is to cause perpetual
Third uM. To change in the soils of the earth. Without such pro-
the ground, visions the ground under cultivation would in a
series of years become exhausted and require to be upturned
laboriously by the hand of man. But the elevations of the earth'*
surface provide for it a perpetual renovation. The higher moun-
tains suffer their summits to be broken into fragments and to be
cast down in sheets of massy rock, full, as we shall see presently,
of every substance necessary for the nourishment of plants : these
fallen fragments are again broken by frost, and ground by torrents,
into various conditions of sand and clay — materials which are dis-
tributed perpetually by the streams farther and farther from the
mountain's base. Every shower which swells the rivulets enables
their waters to carry certain portions of earth into new positions,
and exposes new banks of ground to be mined in their turn. That
turbid foaming of the angry water, — that tearing down of bank
and rock along the flanks of its fiiry, — are no disturbances of the
kind course of nature ; they are beneficent operations of laws ne-
cessary to the existence of man and to the beauty of the earth.
The process is continued more gently, but not less effectively, over
all the surface of the lower undulating country ; and each filtering
thread of summer rain which trickles through the short turf of the
uplands is bearing its own appointed burden of earth to be thrown
down on some new natural garden in the dingles below.

And it is not, in reality, a degrading, but a true, large, and en-
nobling view of the mountain ranges of the world, if we compare
them to heaps of fertile and fresh earth, laid up by a prudent gar-
dener beside his garden beds, whence, at intervals, he casts on
them some scattering of new and virgin ground. That which we
so often lament as convulsion or destruction is nothing else than
the momentary shaking of the dust from the spade. The winter
floods, which inflict a temporary devastation, bear with them the
elements of succeeding fertility ; the fruitful field is covered with
sand and shingle in momentary judgment, but in enduring mercy ;
and the great river, which chokes its mouth with marsh, and
tosses terror along its shore, is but scattering the seeds of the
harvests of futurity, and preparing the seats of unborn generations.

CHAP. VII.] THE DRY LAND. 95

§ 10. I have not spoken of the local and peculiar utilities of
mountains : I do not count the benefit of the supply of summer
streams from the moors of the higher ranges,— of the various me-
dicinal plants which are nested among their rocks, — of the
delicate pasturage which they furnish for cattle, * — of the forests
in which they bear timber for shipping, — the stones they supply
for building, or the ores of metal which they collect into spots
open to discovery, and easy for working. All these benefits are of
a secondary or a limited nature. But the three great functions
which I have just described, — those of giving motion and change
to water, air, and earth, — are indispensable to human existence ;
they are operations to be regarded with as full a depth of gratitude
as the laws which bid the tree bear fruit, or the seed multiply
itself in the earth. And thus those desolate and threatening
ranges of dark mountain, which, in nearly all ages of the world, men
have looked upon with aversion or with terror, and shrunk back
from as if they were haunted by perpetual images of death, are, in
reality, sources of life and happiness far fuller and more beneficent
than all the bright j&niitfulness of the plain. The valleys only
feed ; the mountains feed, and guard, and strengthen us. We
take our idea of fearfulness and sublimity alternately from the
mountains and the sea ; but we associate them unjustly. The sea
wave, with all its beneficence, is yet devouring and terrible; but
the silent wave of the blue mountain is lifted towards heaven in a
stillness of perpetual mercy ; and the one surge, unfathomable in
its darkness, the other, unshaken in its faithfulness, for ever bear
the seal of their appointed symbol :

" Thy righteousness is like the great mountains :
Thy judgments are a great deep.''

* The higJiesi pasturages (at least so say the Savoyards) being always the
best and ridiest.

CHAPTER VIII.

OF THK MATERIALS OF MOUNTAINS: FIRST, COMPACT CRYS-
TALLINES.

§ 1. In the early days of geological science, the substances
which composed the crust of the earth, as far as it could be
examined, were supposed to be referable to three distinct classes:
the first consisting of rocks which not only supported all the rest,
but from which all the rest were derived, therefore called " Pri-
mary ;" the second class consisting of rocks formed of the broken
fragments or altered substance of the primary ones, therefore
called " Secondary ;" and, thirdly, rocks or earthy deposits formed
by the ruins and detritus of both primary and secondary rocks,
called, therefore, "Tertiary." This classification was always, in
some degree, uncertain ; and has been lately superseded by more
complicated systems, founded on the character of the fossils con-
tained in the various deposits, and on the circumstances of position,
by which their relative ages are more accurately ascertainable.
But the original rude classification, though of little, if any, use for
scientific purposes, was based on certain broad and conspicuous
phenomena, which it brought clearly before the popular mind.
In this way it may still be serviceable, and ought, I think, to be
permitted to retain its place, as an introduction to systems more
defined and authoritative.

§ 2. For the fact is, that in approaching any large mountain
range, the ground over which the spectator passes, if he examine
it with any intelligence, will almost always arrange itself in his
mind under three great heads. There will be, first, the ground of
the plains or valleys he is about to quit, composed of sand, clay,
gravel, rolled stones, and variously mingled soils ; which, if he has
any opportunity, — at the banks of a stream, or the sides of a rail-
way cutting, — to examine to any depth, he will find arranged in
beds exactly resembling those of modem sandbanks or sea-beaches.

VOL. III.] III. GROTESQUE. 97

' beautiful and sacred images, bnt in its mocking or playfal
moods it is apt to jest, sometimes bitterly, with under-current
of sternest pathos, sometimes waywardly, sometimes slightly
and wickedly, with death and sin ; hence an enormous mass
of grotesque art, some most noble and useful, as Holbein's
Dance of Death, and Albert Durer's Knight and Death,*
going down gradually through various conditions of less and
less seriousness into an art whose only end is that of mere ex-
citement, or amusement by terror, like a child making mouths
at another, more or less redeemed by the degree of wit or
fancy in the grimace it makes, as in the demons of Teniers
and such others ; and, lower still, in the demonology of the
stage.

§ 3. The form arising from an entirely healthful and open,
play of the imagination, as in Shakspere's Ariel and Titania,
and in Scott's White Lady, is comparatively rare. It hardly
ever is free from some slight taint of the inclination to evil ;
still more rarely- is it, when so free, natural to the mind ; for
the moment we begin to contemplate sinless beauty we are apt
to get serious ; and moral fairy tales, and such other innocent
work, are hardly ever truly, that is to say, naturally imagina-
tive; but for the most part laborious inductions and compo-
sitions. The moment any real vitality enters them, they are
nearly sure to become satirical, or slightly gloomy, and so con-
nect themselves with the evil-enjoying branch.

§ 4. The third form of the Grotesque is a thoroughly noble
one. It is that which arises out of the use or fancy of tangible
signs i<* set forth an otherwise less expressible truth ; includ-
ing nearly the whole range of symbolical and allegorical art
and poetry. Its nobleness has been sufficiently insisted upon
in the place before referred to. (Chapter on Grotesque Re-
naissance, §§ LXiii. LXIV. &c.) Of its practical use, especial-
ly in painting, deeply despised among us, because grossly mis-
understood, a few words must be added here.

A fine grotesque is the expression, in a moment, by a series

of symbols thrown together in bold and fearless connection,

of truths which it would have taken a long- time to express in

any verbal way, and of which the connection is left for the

* Sec Appendix I. Vol. IV. " Modern Grotesque."

VOL. III. 5

08 OF THE TRUE IDEAL. [pART IV.

beholder to work out for liimself ; the gaps, left or over-
leaped by the haste of the imagination, forming the grotesque
character.

§ 5. For instance, Spenser desires to tell us, (1.) that envy-
is the most untamable and unappeasable of the passions, not to
be soothed by any kindness ; (2 ) that with continual labor it
invents evil thoughts out of its own heart ; (3.) that even in
this, its power of doing harm is partly hindered by the decay-
ing and corrupting nature of the evil it lives in ; (4.) that it
looks every way, and that whatever it sees is altered and dis-
colored by its own nature ; (5.) which discoloring, however,
is to it a veil, or disgraceful dress, in the sight of others ;
(6.) and that it never is free from the most bitter suffering,
(7.) which cramps all its acts and movements, enfolding and
crushing it while it torments. All this it has required a some-
what long and languid sentence for me to say in unsymbolical
terms, — not, by the way, that they are unsymbolical altogether,
for I have been forced, whether I would or not, to use some
figurative words ; but even with this help the sentence is long
and tiresome, and does not with any vigor represent the truth.
It would take some prolonged enforcement of each sentence to
make it felt, in ordinary ways of talking. But Spenser puts
it all into a grotesque, and it is done shortly and at once, so
that we feel it fully, and see it, and never forget it. I have
numbered above the statements which had to be made. I now
number them with the same numbers, as they occur in the several
pieces of the grotesque : — *

" And next to him, malicious Envy rode
(I.) Upon a ravenous wolfe, and (2. 3.) still did cha
Between his eaukred* teeth a venemoua tode
That all the poison ran about his jaw.
(4. 6.) AU in a kirtle of diacolourd sny

He clothed was, y-paynted full of eies ;
(6.) And in his bosome secretly there lay

An hatefuU snake, the which his tail uptyes
(7.) In many folds, and mortall sting implyes."

There is the whole thing in nine lines ; or, rather, in one image,
which will hardly occupy any room at all on the mind's shelves,
* Cankred — ^because he cannot then Lite hard.

VOL. III.] III. GROTESQUE. 99

but can be lifted oat, whole, whenever we want it. All noble
grotesques are concentrations of this kind, and the noblest convey
truths which nothing else could convey ; and not only so, but
convey them, in minor cases with a delightfulness, — ^in the
higher instances with an awfulness, — ^which no mere utterance
of the symbolised truth would have possessed, but which
belongs to the effort of the mind to unweave the riddle, or to
the sense it has of there being an infinite power and meaning in
the thing seen, beyond all that is apparent therein, giving the
highest sublimity even to the most trivial object so presented
and so Contemplated.

" 'Jeremiah, what seest thouf*
'I Bee a seething pot, and the face thereof is toward the north,
< Out of the north an evil shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of the
land,'"

And thus in all ages and among all nations, grotesque idealism
has been the element through which the most appalling and
eventful truth has been wisely conveyed, from the most sublime
words of true Revelation, to the " dXX' oV av ^/Xiovo^ jSacTiXsoV,"
&c., of the oracles, and the more or less doubtful teaching of
dreams ; and so down to ordinary poetry. No element of
imagination has a wider range, a more magnificent use, or so
colossal a grasp of sacred truth.

§ 6; How, then, is this noble power best to be employed in
the art of ptdnting ?

We Tiear it not unfrequently asserted that symbolism or per-
sonification should not be introduced in painting at all. Such
assertions are in their grounds unintelligible, and in their sub-
stance absurd. Whatever is in words described as visible, may
with all logical fitness* be rendered so by colors, and not only
is this a legitimate branch of ideal art, but I believe there is
hardly any other so widely useful and instructive ; and I heartily
wish that every great allegory which the poets ever invented
were powerfully put on canvass, and easily accessible by all men,
and that our artists were perpetually exciting themselves to
invent more. And as far as authority bears on the question, the
simple fact is that allegorical painting has been the delight of the

* Though, perhaps, only in a subordinate degree. See farther on, § 8.

100 OF THB TRUE IDEAL. [PART IV.

greatest men and of the wisest multitudes, from the beginning of
art, and will be till art expires. Orcagna's Triumph of Death ;
Simon Memmi's frescoes in the Spanish Ghapel ; Giotto's prin-
cipal works at Assisi, and partly at the Arena ; Michael Angelo's
two best statues, the Night and Day ; Albert Durer's noble
Melancholy, and hundreds more of his best works ; a full third,
I should think, of the works of Tintoret and Veronese, and
nearly as large a portion of those of Eaphael and Rubens, are
entirely symbolical or personifiant ; and, except in the case of the
last-named painter, are always among the most interesting works
the painters executed. The greater and more thoughtful the
artists, the more they delight in symbolism, and the more fear-
lessly they employ it. Dead symbolism, second-hand symbolism
pointless symbolism, are indeed objectionable enough ; but so
are most other things that are dead, second-hand, and pointless.
It is also true that both symbolism and personification are some-
what more apt than most things to have their edges taken off
by too much handling ; and what with our modern Fames, Jus-
tices, and various metaphorical ideals, largely used for signs and
other such purposes, there is some excuse for our not well
knowing what the real power of personification is. But that
power is gigantic and inexhaustible, and ever to be grasped with
peculiar joy by the painter, because it permits him to introduce
picturesque elements and flights of fancy into his work, which
otherwise would be utterly inadmissible; to bring the wild
beasts of the desert into the room of state, fill the air with inha-
bitants as well as the earth, and render the least (visibly) inter-
esting incidents themes for the most thrilling drama. Even
Tintoret might sometimes have been hard put to it, when he
had to fill a large panel in the Ducal Palace with the portrait
of a nowise interesting Doge, unless he had been able to lay a
winged lion beside him, ten feet long from the nose to the tail,
asleep upon the Turkey carpet ; and Bubens could certainly
have made his flatteries of Mary of Medicis palatable to no one
but herself, without the help of rosyrcheeked goddesses of abun-
dance, and seven -headed hydras of rebellion.

§ 7. For observe, not only does the introduction of these
imaginary beings permit greater fantasticism of incident, but
also infinite fantasticism of treatment ; and, I believe, so far

VOL. III.] III. GBOTESQUE. 101

from the pursuit of the false ideal having in anj wise exhausted
the realms of fantastic imagination, those realms have hardlj
yet been entered, and that a universe of noble dream-land lies
before us, yet to be conquered. For, hitherto, when fantastic
creatures have been introduced, either the masters have been
so realistic in temper that they made the spirits as substantial
as their figures of flesh and blood, — ^as Rubens, and, for the
most part, Tintoret ; or else they have been weak and unprac-
tised in realization, and have painted transparent or cloudy
spirits because they had no power of painting grand ones. But
if a really great painter, thoroughly capable of giving substan-
tial truth, and master of the elements of pictorial effect which
have been developed by modern art, would solemnly, and yet
fearlessly, cast his fancy free in the spiritual world, and faith-
fully follow out such masters of that world as Dante and
Spenser, there seems no limit to the splendor of thought which
painting might express. Consider, for instance, how the ordi-
nary personifications of Charity oscillate between the mere nurse
of many children, of Beynolds, and the somewhat painfully
conceived figure with flames issuing from the heart, of Giotto ;
and how much more significance might be given . to the repre-
sentation of Love, by amplifying with tenderness the thought
of Dante, ** Tanta rossa, che a pena fora dentro al foco nota,"*
that is to say, by representing the loveliness of her face and
form as all flushed with glow of crimson light, and, as she
descended through heaven, all its clouds colored by her presence
as they are by sunset In the hands of a feeble painter, such
an attempt would end in mere caricature ; but suppose it taken
up by Correggio, adding to his power of flesh-painting the (not
inconsistent) feeling of Angelico in design, and a portion of
Turner's knowledge of the clouds. There is nothing impossi-
ble in such a conjunction as this. Correggio, trained in another
school, might have even himself shown some such extent of
grasp ; and in Turner's picture of the dragon of the Hesperides,
Jason, vignette to Voyage of Columbus (" Slowly along the
evening sky they went"), and such others, as well as in many
of the works of Watts and Rosetti, is already visible, as I trust,

* '^ So red, that in the midst of the fire ahe could hardly have beea seeQ."

102 OP THE TRUE IDEAL. [PART IV.

the dawn of a new era of art, in a true unison of tbe grotesque
with the realistic power.

§ 8. There is, however, unquestionably, a severe limit, in the
case of all inferior- masters, to the degree in which they may
venture to realize grotesque conception, and partly, also, a limit
in the nature of the thing itself, there being many grotesque
ideas which may be with safety suggested dimly by words or
slight lines, but which will hardly bear being painted into per-
fect definiteness. It is very difficult, in reasoning on this mat-
ter, to divest- ourselves of the prejudices which have been
forced upon us by the base grotesque of men like Bronzino,
who, having no true imagination, are apt, more than others, to
try by startling realism to enforce the monstrosity that has no
terror in itself. But it is nevertheless true, that, unless in the
hands of the very greatest men, the grotesque seems better to
be expressed merely in line, or light and shade, or mere
abstract color, so as to mark it for a thought rather than a sub-
stantial fact. Even if Albert Durer had perfectly painted his
Knight and Death, I question if we should feel it so great a
thought as we do in the dark engraving. Blake, perfectly
powerful in the etched grotesque of the book of Job, fails
always more or less as soon as he adds color ; not merely for
want of power (his eye for color being naturally good), but
because his subjects seem, in a sort, insusceptible of completion ;
and the two inexpressibly noble and pathetic woodcut grotesques
of Alfred RethePs, Death the Avenger, and Death the Friend,
could not, I think, but with disadvantage, be advanced into
pictorial color.

And what is thus doubtfully true of the pathetic grotesque,
is assuredly and always true of the jesting grotesque. So far
as it expresses any transient flash of wit or satire, the less labor
of line, or color, given to its expression the better ; elaborate
jesting being always intensely painful.

§ 9. For these several reasons, it seems not only permissible,
but even desirable, that the art by which the grotesque is
expressed should be more or less imperfect, and this seems a
most beneficial ordinance as respects the human race in general.
For the grotesque being not only a most forceful instrument of
teaching, but a most natural manner of expression, springing as

VOL. in.] III. GROTESQUE. 103

it does at once from anj tendency to playfulness m minds
highly comprehensive of truth ; and being also one of the
readiest ways in which such satire or wit as may be possessed
by men of any inferior rank of mind can be for perpetuity
expressed, it becomes on all grounds desirable that what is sug-
gested in times of play should be rightly sayable without toil ;
and what occurs to men of inferior power or knowledge, say-
able without any high degree of skill. Hence it is an infinite
good to mankind when there is full acceptance of the grotesque,
slightly sketched or expressed ; and, if field for such expres-
sion be frankly granted^ an enormous mass of intellectual power
is turned to everlasting use, which, in this present, century of
ours, evaporates in street gibing or vain revelling ; all the good
wit and satire expiring in daily talk, (like foam on wine,) which
in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries had a permitted and
usefol expression in the arts of sculpture and illumination, like
foam fixed into chalcedony. It is with a view (not the least
important among many others bearing upon art) to the reopen-
ing of this great field of human intelligence, long entirely
closed, that I am striving to introduce Gothic architecture into
daily domestic use; and to revive the art of illumination,
properly so called ; not the art of miniature-painting in books,
or on vellum, which, has ridiculously been confused with it ;
but of making tcriiing, simple writing, beautiful to the eye, by
investing it with the great chord of perfect color, blue, purple,
scarlet, white, and gold, and in that chord of color, permitting
the continual play of the fancy of the writer in every species
of grotesque imagination, carefully excluding shadow ; the dis-
tinctive difference between illumination and painting proper,
being, that illumination admits no shadows, but only gradations
of pure color. And it is in this respect that illumination is
specially fitted for grotesque expression ; for, when 1 used the
term ** pictorial color," just now, in speaking of the completion
of the grotesque of Death the Avenger, I meant to distinguish
such color from the abstract, shadeless hues which are eminently
fitted for grotesque thought. The requirement, respecting the
slighter grotesque, is only that it shall be incompletely ex-
pressed. It may have light and shade without color (as in
etching and sculpture), or color without light and shade

104 OF THE TRUE IDEAL. [PABT IV.

(illumination), but must not, except in tlie hands of the greatest
masters, have both. And for some conditions of the playful
grotesque, the abstract color is a much more delightful element
of expression than the abstract light and shade.

§ 10. Such being the manifold and precious uses of the true
grotesque, it only remains for us to note carefully how it is to
be distinguished from the false and vicious grotesque which
results from idleness, instead of noble rest ; -from malice,
instead of the solemn contemplation of necessary evil; and
from general degradation of the human spirit, instead of its
subjection, or confusion, by thoughts too high for it. It is
easy for the reader to conceive how different the fruits of two
such different states of mind must be; and yet how like in
many respects, and apt to be mistaken, one for the other ; —
how the jest which springs from mere fatuity, and vacant want
of penetration or purpose, is everlastingly, infinitely, separated
firom, and yet may sometimes be mistaken for, the bright, play-
ful, fond, far-sighted jest of Plato, or the bitter, purposeful,
sorrowing jest of Aristophanes ; how, again, the horror which
springs from guilty love of foulness and sin, may be often mis-
taken for the inevitable horror which a great mind must some-
times feel in the full and penetrative sense of their presence ; —
how, finally, the vague and foolish inconsistencies of undisci-
plined dream or reverie may be mistaken for the compelled
inconsistencies of thoughts too great to be well sustained, or
clearly uttered. It is easy, I say, to understand what a
difference there must indeed be between these ; and yet
how difficidt it may be always to define it, or lay down
laws for the discovery of it, ,except by the just instinct of
minds set habitually in all things to discern right from
wrong.

§ 11. Nevertheless, one good and characteristic instance may
be of service in marking the leading directions in which the
contrast is discernible. On the opposite page, Plate I., I have
put, beside each other, a piece of true grotesque, from the
Lombard-Gothic, and of fVilsc grotesque from classical (Roman)
architecture. They are both griflSns ; the one on the left carries
on his back one of the main pillars of the porch of the cathe-
dral of Verona; the one on the right is on the frieze of the

VOL. lU.] UI. OROTESQUK. 105

temple of Antoninus and Faustina at Rome, mucH celebrated
by Renaissance and bad modem architects.

In some respects, however, this classical griffin deserves its
reputation. It is exceedingly fine in lines of composition, and,
I believe (I have not examined the original closely), very
exquisite in execution. For these reasons, it is all the better
for our purpose. I do not want to compare the worst false
grotesque with the best true, but rather, on the contrary, the
best ^se with the simplest true, in order to see how the deli-
cately wrought lie fails in the presence of the rough truth ; for
rough truth in the present case it is, the Lombard sculpture
being altogether untoward and imperfect in execution *

§ 12. " Well, but," the reader says, " what do you mean by
calling eitTier of them true ? There never were such beasts in
the world as either of these ?"

No, never : but the difference is, that the Lombard workman
did really see a griffin in his imagination, and carved it from
the life, meaning to declare to all ages that he had verily seen
with his immortal eyes such a griffin as that ; but the classical
workman never saw a griffin at all, nor anything else ; but put
the whole thing together by line and rule. .

§ 13. " How do you know that ?"

Very easily. Look at the two, and think over them. You
know a griffin is a beast composed of lion and eagle. The
classical workman set himself to fit these together in the most
ornamental way possible. He accordingly carves a sufficiently
satisfactory lion's body, then attaches very gracefully cut wings
to the sides : then, because he cannot get the eagle's head on
the broad lion's shoulders, fits the two together by something
like a horse's neck (some griffins being wholly composed of a
horse and eagle), then, finding the horse's neck look weak and
unformidable, he strengthens it by a series of bosses, like ver-
tebrae, in front, and by a series of spiny cusps, instead of a
mane, on the ridge ; next, not to lose the whole leonine charac-
ter about the neck, he gives a remnant of the lion's beard,

* If there be any inaccuracy in the right-hand griffin, I am sorry, but
am not answerable for it, as the plate has been faithfully reduced from a
large French lithograph, the best I could find. The other is from a sketch
of my own.

106 OP TUB TRUE IDBAL, [pART IV.

turned into a sort of griffin's whisker, and nicely curled and
pointed; then an eye, probably meant to look grand and
abstracted, and therefore neither lion's nor eagle's ; and, finally,
an eagle's beak, very sufficiently studied from a real one. The
whole head beiflg, it seems to him, still somewhat wanting in
weight and power, he brings forward the right wing behind it,
so as to enclose it with a broad line. This is the finest thing
in the composition, and very masterly, both in thought, and in
choice of the exactly right point where the lines of wing and
beak should intersect (and it may be noticed in passing, that
all men, who can compose at all, have this habit of encompass-
ing or governing broken lines with broad ones, wherever it is
possible, of which we shall see many instances hereafter). The
whole griffin, thus gracefully composed, being, nevertheless,
when all is done, a very composed griffin, is set to very quiet
work, and raising his left foot, to balance his right wing, sets it
on the tendril of a flower so lightly as not even to bend it
down, though, in order to reach it, his left leg is made half as
long again as his right.

§ 14. We may be pretty sure, if the carver had ever seen
a griffin, he would have reported of him as doing something
else than that with his feet. Let us see what the Lombardic
workman saw him doing.

Remember, first, the griffin, though part lion and part eagle,
has the united power of both. He is not merely a bit of lion
and a bit of eagle, but whole lion, incorporate with whole eagle.
So when we really see one, we may be quite sure we shall not
find him wanting in anything necessary to the might either of
beast or bird.

Well, among things essential to the might of a lion, perhaps,
on the whole, the most essential are his teeth. He could get
on pretty well even without his claws, usually striking his prey
down with a blow, woundless ; but he could by no means get
on without his teeth. Accordingly, we see that the real or
Lombardic griffin has the carnivorous teeth bare to the root,
and the peculiar hanging of the jaw at the back, which marks
the flexible and gaping mouth of the devouring tribes.

Again ; among things essential to the might of an eagle, next
to his wings (which are of course prominent in both examples),

VOL. III.] IIL GROTESQUE. 10?

are his clawM, It is no nse his being able to tear anything with
his beak, if he cannot first hold it in his claws ; he has compa-
ratively no leonine power of striking with his feet, bat a mag-
nificent power of grip with them. Accordingly, we see that
the real griffin, while his feet are heavy enough to strike like a
lion's, has them also extended far enough to give them the
eagle's grip with the back claw ; and has, moreover, some of
the bird-like wrinkled skin over the whole foot, marking this
binding power the more ; and that he has besides verily got
something to hold with his feet, other than a flower, of which
more presently.

§ 15. Now observe, the Lombardic workman did not do all
this because he had thought it out, as you and I are doing
together ; he never thought a bit about it. He simply saw the
beast ; saw it as plainly as you see the writing on this page,
and of course could not be wrong in anything he told us of it.

Well, what more does he tell us ? Another thing, remember,
essential to an eagle is that it should fly fast. It is no use its
having wings at all if it is to be impeded in the use of them.
Now it woidd be difficult to impede him more thoroughly than
by giving him two cocked ears to catch the wind.
. Look, again, at the two beasts. You see the false griffin has
them so set, and, consequently, as he flew, there would be a
continual humming of the wind on each side of his head, and
he would have an infallible earache when he got home. But
the real griffin has his ears flat to his head, and all the hair of
them blown back, even to a point, by his fast flying, and the
aperture is downwards, that he may hear anything going on
upon the earth, where his prey is. In the false griffin the
aperture is upwards.

§ 16. Well, what more 1 As he is made up of the natures
of lion and eagle, we may be veiy certain that a real griffin is,
on the whole, fond of eating, and that his throat will look as if
he occasionally took rather large pieces, besides being flexible
enough to let him ben(J and stretch his head in every direction
as he flies.

Look, again, at the two beasts. You see the false one has
got those bosses upon his neck like vertebrae, which must be
infinitely in hb way w^n he is swallowing, and which are

108 OF THE TRUE IDEAL. [PABT IV.

evidently inseparable, so that he cannot stretch his neck any
more than a horse. But the real griffin is all loose about the
neck, evidently being able to make it almost as much longer as
he likes ; to stretch aud bend it anywhere, and swallow any-
thing, besides having some of the grand strength of the bull's
dewlap in it when at rest.

§ 17. What more ? Having both lion and eagle in him, it is
probable that the real griffin will have an infinite look of
repose as well as power of activity. One of the notablest
things about a lion is his magnificent indolence, his look of
utter disdain of trouble when there is no occasion for it ; as,
also, one of the notablest things about an eagle is his look of
inevitable vigilance, even when quietest. Look, again, at the
two beasts. You see the false griffin is quite sleepy and dead
in the eye, thus contradicting his eagle's nature, but is putting
himself to a great deal of unnecessary trouble with his paws,
holding one in a most painful position merely to touch a flower,
and bearing the whole weight of his body on the other, thus
contradicting his lion's nature.

But the real griffin is primarily, with his eagle's nature, wide
awake ; evidently quite ready for whatever may happen ; and
with his lion's nature, laid all his length on his belly, prone and
ponderous ; his two paws as simply put out before him as a
drowsy puppy's on a drawingroom hearth-rug ; not but that
he has got something to do with them, worthy of such paws ;
but he takes not one whit more trouble about it than is abso-
lutely necessary. He has merely got a poisonous winged
dragon to hold, and for such a little matter as that, he may as
well do it lying down and at his ease, looking out at the same
time for any other piece of work in his way. He takes the
dragon by the middle^ one paw under the wing, another above,
gathers him up into a kn<>t, puts two or three of his claws well
into his back, crashing through tba scales of it and wrinkling
ail the flesh up from the wound, fiattezid him down against the
ground, and so lets him do what he likcaL The dragon tries to
bite him, but ^ai^ m\j bring his head rcnmii far enough to get
hold of bis own wing, >vhich he bites in agooy instead ; flap-
ping the griffin^s ^ewlfl,p with it, and wriggllflg his tail up
against the griffin'* throat j ihQ' griffin Wi»g# ^ to these minor

YOL. ni.] in. OBOTS8QUB. 10ft

proceedings, entirely indifferent, sure that the dragon's body
cannot drag itself one hair's breadth off those ghastly claws,
and that its head can do no harm but to itself.

§ 18. Now observe how in all this, through every separate
part and action of the creature, the imagination is always right
It evidently cannot err ; it meets every one of our requirements
respecting the griffin as simply as if it were gathering up the
bones of the real creature out of some ancient rock. It does
not itself know or care, any more than the peasant laboring
with his spade and axe, what is wanted to meet our theories or
fancies. It knows simply what is there, and brings out the
positive creature, errorless, unquestionable. So it is through^
out art, and in all that the imagination does ; if anything be
wrong it is not the imagination's fault, but some inferior
faculty's, which would have its foolish say in the matter, and
meddled with the imagination, and said, the bones ought to be
put together tail first, or upside down.

§ 19. This, however, we need not be amazed at, because the
very essence of the imagination is already defined to be the
seeing to the heart ; and it is not therefore wonderful that it
should never err ; but it is wonderful, on the other hand,*how
the composing legalism does nothing else than err. One would
have thought that, by mere chance, in this or the other ele-
ment of griffin, the griffin-composer might have struck out a
truth ; that he might have had the luck to set the ears back,
or to give some grasp to the claw. But, no ; from beginning
to end it is evidently impossible for him to be anything but
wrong; his whole soul is instinct with lies; no veracity can"^
come within hail of him ; to him, all regions of right and life
are for ever closed.

§ 20. And another notable point is, that while the imagina^
tion receives truth in this simple way, it is all the while receiv-
ing statutes of composition also, far more noble than those for
the sake of which the truth was lost by the legalist. The
ornamental lines in the classical griffin appear at first finer than
in the other ; but they only appear so because they are more
commonplace and more palpable. The subtlety of the sweep-
ing and rolling curves in the real griffin, the way they waver
and change and fold, down the neck, and alon^ the wing, and

110 OF THE TRUE IDEAL [PART IV.

in and out among the serpent coils, is incomparably grander,
merely as grouping of ornamental line, than anything in the
other ; nor is it fine as ornamental only, but as massively use-
ful, giving weight of stone enough to answer the entire purpose
of pedestal sculpture. Note, especially, the insertion of the
three plumes of the dragon's broken wing in the outer angle,
just under the large coil of his body ; thb filling of the gap
being one of the necessities, not of the pedestal block merely,
but a means of getting mass and breadth, which all composers
desire more or less, but which they seldom so perfectly ac-
complish.

So that taking the truth first, the honest imagination gains
everything ; it has its griffinism, and grace, and usefolness, all
at once : but the false composer, caring for nothing but himself
and his rules, loses everything, — ^griffinism, grace, and all.

§ 21. I believe the reader will now sufficiently see how the
terms "true" and ''false" are in the most accurate sense
attachable to the opposite branches of what might appear at
first, in both cases, the merest wildness of inconsistent reverie.
But they are even to be attached, in a deeper sense than that
in which we have hitherto used them, to these two composi-
tions. For the imagination hardly ever works in this intense
way, unencumbered by the inferior faculties, unless it be under
the influence of some solemn purpose or sentiment. And to all
the falseness and all the verity of these two ideal creatures
this farther falsehood and verity have yet to be added, that the
classical griffin has, at least in this place, no other intent than
that of covering a level surface with entertaining form ; but the
Lombardic griffin is a profound expression of the most passion-
ate symbolism. Under its eagle's wings are two wheels,*
which mark it as connected, in the mind of him who wrought
it, with the living creatures of the vision of Ezekiel : " When
they went, the wheels went by them, and whithersoever the
spirit was to go, they went, and the wheels were lifted up over
against them, for the spirit of the living creatures was in the
wheels." Thus signed, the winged shape becomes at once one
of the acknowledged symbols of the Divine power ; and, in its
unity of lion and eagle, the workman of the middle ages always
* At the extremities of the wings, — ^not seen in the plate.

VOL. m,] OF FINISH. Ill

meant to set forth the unity of the human and divine natures.*
In this unity it bears up the pillars of the Church, set for ever
as the comer stone. And the faithful and true imagination
beholds it, in this unity, with everlasting vigilance and calm
omnipotence, restrain the seed of the serpent crushed upon the
earth ; leaving the head of it free, only for a time, that it may
inflict in its fury profoimder destruction upon itself, — in this
also full of deep meaning. The Divine power does not slay
the evil creature. It wounds and restrains it only. Its final
and deadly wound is inflicted by itself.

* Compare the Porgstorio^ canto xziz. Aa

112 OJt PINISB. [irABT IV

OHAPTEE IX.

OF FINISH.

§ 1. I AM afraid the reader must be, bj this time, almost tired
of hearing about truth. But I cannot help this ; the more
I have examined the various forms of art, and exercised mjself
in receiving their differently intended impressions, the more I
have found this truthfulness a final test, the only test of lasting
power ; and, although our concern in this part of our inquiry
is, professedly, with the beauty which blossoms out of truth,
still I find myself compelled always to gather it by the stalk,
not by the petals. I cannot hold the beauty, nor be sure of it
for a moment, but by feeling for that strong stem.

We have, in the preceding chapters, glanced, through the
various operations of the imaginative power of man ; with this
almost painfully monotonous result, that its greatness and honor
were always simply in proportion to the quantity of truth it
grasped. And now the question, left undetermined some hun-
dred pages back (Chap. li. § 6.), recurs to us in a simpler form
than it could before. How far is this true imagination to be
truly represented ? How far should the perfect conception of
Pallas be so given as to look like Pallas herself, rather than
like the picture of Pallas 1

§ 2. A question, this, at present of notable interest, and de-
manding instant attention. For it seemed to us, in reasoning
ab^ut Dante's views of art, that he was, or might be, right in
desiring realistic completeness ; and yet, in what we have just
seen of the grotesque ideal, it seemed there was a certain de-
sirableness in incompleteness. And the schools of art in Eu-
rope are, at this moment, set in two hostile ranks, — not nobly
hostile, but spitefully and scornfully, having for one of the main
grounds of their dispute the apparently simple question, how

VOL. in.] OF FINISH. 1 13

far a picture may be carried forward in detail, or how soon it
may be considered as finished.

I propose, therefore, in the present chapter, to examine, aT
thoronghlj as I can, the real signification of this word, Finish
as applied to art, and to see if in this, as in other matters, out
almost tiresome test is not the only right one ; whether there
be not a fallacious finish and a faithful finish, and whether the
dispute, which seems to be only about completion and incom-
pletion, has not therefore, at the bottom of it, the old and deep
grounds of fetllacy and fidelity.

§ 3. Observe, first, there are two great and separate senses
in which we call a thing finished, or well-finished. One, which
refers to the mere neatness and completeness of the actual
work, as we speak of a well-finished knife-handle or ivory
toy (as opposed to ill-cut ones) ; and, secondly, a sense which
refers to the effect produced by the thing done, as we call a
picture well-finished if it is so full in its details, as to pro-
duce the effect of reality on the spectator. And, in England,
we seem at present to value highly the first sort of finish which
belongs to workman^Ai/?, in our manufactures and general
doings of any kind, but to despise totally the impressive finish
which belongs to the work; and therefore we like smooth
ivories better than rough ones,-r-but careless scrawls or daubs
better than the most complete paintings. Now, I believe that
we exactly reverse the fitness of judgment in this matter, and
that we ought, on the contrary, to despise the finish of work-
manskipy which is done for vanity's sake, and to love the finish
of worky which is done for truth's sake, — that we ought, in a
word, to finish our ivory toys more roughly, and our pictures
more delicately.

Let us think over this matter.

§ 4. Perhaps one of the most remarkable points of difference
between the English and Continental nations is in the degree of
finish given to their ordinary work. It is enough to cross from
Dover to Calais to feel this difference ; and to travel farther only
increases the sense of it. English windows for the most part fit
their sashes, and their woodwork is neatly planed and smoothed ;
French windows are larger, heavier, and framed with wood that
looks as if it had been cut to its shape with a hatchet ; they have

il4 OF FINISH. [part IV.

•

curiouii and cumbrous fastenings, and can only be forced asunder
or together by some ingenuity and effort, and even then not
properly. So with everything else — French, Italian, and Ger-
man, and, as far as I know, Continental. Foreign drawers do
not slide as well as ours ; foreign knives do not cut so well ;
foreign wheels do not turn bo well ; and we commonly plume
ourselves much upon this, believing that generally the Eng-
lish people do their work better and more thoroughly, or as
they say, " turn it out of their hands in better style," than
foreigners. I do not know how far this is really the case. There
may be a flimsy neatness, as well as a substantial roughness ; it
does not necessarily follow that the window which shuts easiest
will last the longest, or that the harness which glitters the
most is assuredly made of the toughest leather. I am afraid,
that if this peculiar character of finish in our workmanship ever
arose from a greater heartiness and thoroughness in our ways
of doing things, it does so only now in the case of our best
manufacturers ; and that a great deal of the work done in Eng-
land, however good in appearance, is but treacherous and rotten
in substance. Still, I think that there is really in the English
mind, for the most part, a stronger desire to do things as well as
they can be done, and less inclination to put up with inferiorities
or insuflSciencies, than in general characterise the temper of
foreigners. There is in this conclusion no ground for national
vanity ; for though the desire to do things as well as they can be
done at first appears like a virtue, it is certainly not so in all
its forms. On the contrary, it proceeds in nine cases out of ten
more from vanity than conscientiousness ; and that, moreover,
often a weak vanity. I suppose that as much finish is displayed
in the fittings of the private carriages of our young rich inen as
in any other department of English manufacture ; and that our
St. James's Street cabs, dogcarts, and liveries are singularly
perfect in their way. But the feeling with which this perfection
is insisted upon (however desirable as a signof energy of purpose)
is not in itself a peculiarly amiable or noble feeling ; neither is it
an ignoble disposition which would induce a country gentleman to
put up with certain deficiencies in the appearance of his country-
made carriage. It is true that such philosophy may degenerate
into negligence, and that much thought and long discussion would

VOL. III.J OP FINISH. 115

•

be needed before we conld determine satisfactoriljr the limiting
lines between virtuous contentment and faultful carelessness ;
but at all events we bave no rigbt at once to pronounce ourselves
tbe wisest people because we like to do all things in tbe best
way. There are many little things which to do admirably is
to waste both time and cost ; and the real question is not so
much whether we have done a given thing as well as possible,
as whether we have turned a given quantity of labor to the
best account.

§ 5. Now, so far from the labor's being turned to good ac-
count which is given to our English " finishing," I believe it to
be usually destructive of the best powers of our workmen's
minds. For it is evident, in the first place, that there is almost
always a useful and a useless finish ; the hammering and weld-
ing which are necessary to produce a sword plate of the best
quality, are useful finishing ; the polishing of its surface, use-
less.* In nearly all work this distinction will, more or less,
take place between substantial finish and apparent finish, or
what may be briefly characterized as " Make " and " Polish."
And so far as finish is bestowed for purposes of '' make," I
have nothing to say against it. Even the vanity which dis-
plays itself in giving strength to our work is rather a virtue
than a vice. But so far as finish is bestowed for purposes of
'* polish," there is much to be said against it ; this first, and
very strongly, that the qualities aimed at in common finishing,
namely, smoothness, delicacy, or fineness, cannot in reality
exist, in a degree worth admiring, in anything done by human
hands. Our best finishing is but coarse and blundering work
after all. We may smooth, and soften, and sharpen till we are
sick at heart ; but take a good magnifying glass to our miracle
of skill, and the invisible edge is a jagged saw, and the silky
thread a rugged cable, and the soft surface a granite desert.
Let all the ingenuity and all the art of the human race be
brought to bear upon the attainment of the utmost possible
finish, and they could not do what is done in the foot of a fly,
or the film of a bubble. God alone can finish ; and the more

* "With his Yemen sword for aid ;
Ornament it carried none.
But the notches on the blade.**

116 OF FINISH. [part IV.

intelligent the human mind becomes, the more the infiniteness
of interval is felt between human and divine work in this
respect. So then it is not a little absurd to weary ourselves in
struggling towards a point which we never can reach, and to
exhaust our strength in vain endeavors to produce qualities
which exist inimitably and inexhaustibly in the commonest
things around us.

§ 6. But more thaa this : the fact is that in multitudes of
instances, instead of gaining greater fineness of finish by our
work, we are only destroying the fine finish of nature, and
substituting coarseness and imperfection. For instance, when
a rock of any kind has lain for some time exposed to the
weather. Nature finishes it in her own way ; first, she takes
wonderful pains about its forms, sculpturing it into exquisite
variety of dint and dimple, and rounding or hollowing it into
contours, which for fineness no human hand can follow ; then
she colors it ; and every one of her touches of color, instead of
being a powder mixed with oil, is a minute forest of living
trees, glorious in strength and beauty, and concealing*wonders
of structure, which in all probability are mysteries even to the
eyes of angels. Man comes and digs up this finished and mar-
vellous piece of work, which in his ignorance he calls a ''rough
stone." He proceeds to finish it in his fashion, that is, to split
it in two, rend it into ragged blocks, and, finally, to chisel its
surface into a large number of lumps and knobs, all equally
shapeless, colorless, deathful, and Mghtful.* And the block,
thus disfigured, he calls "finished," and proceeds to build
therewith, and thinks himself great, forsooth, and an intelligent
animal. Whereas, all that he has really done is, to destroy
with utter ravage a piece of divine art, which, under the laws
appointed by the Deity to regulate his work in this world, it
must take good twenty years to produce the like of again.
This he has destroyed, and has himself given in its place a
piece of work which needs no more intelligence to do than a
pholas has, or a worm, or the spirit which throughout the
world has authority over rending, rottenness, and decay. I
do not say that stone must not be cut ; it needs to be cut for
certain uses ; only I say that the cutting it is not *' finishing,"
* See the base of the new Army and Navy dubhoose.

VOL.ni.] OF FINISH. 117

but unGmshmg, it ; and that so far as the mere fact of chisel-
ling goes, the stone is ruined by the human touch. It is with
it as with the stones of the Jewish altar: " If thou lift up thy
tool upon it thou hast polluted it." In like manner a tree is a
finished thing. But a plank, though ever so polished, is not.
We need stones and planks, as we need food ; but we no more
bestow an additional admirableness upon stone in hewing it, or
upon a tree in sawing it, than upon an animal in killing it.

§ 7. Well, but it will bo said, there is certainly a kind of
finish in stone-cutting, and in every other art, which is merito-
rious, and which consists in smoothing and refining as much as
possible. Yes, assuredly there is a meritorious finish. First,
as it has just been said, that which fits a thing for its uses, — as
a stone to lie well in its place, or the cog of an engine wheel to
play well on another^ and, secondly, a finish belonging proper-
ly to the arts ; but that finish does not consist in smoothing or
polishing, but in the completeness of the expression of ideas.
For in painting, there is precisely the same difference between
the ends proposed in finishing that there is in manufacture.
Some artists finish for the finish' sake ; dot their pictures all
over, as in some kinds of miniature-painting (when a wash of
color would have produced as good an effect) ; or polish their
pictures all over, making the execution so delicate that the
touch of the brush cannot be seen, for the sake of the smooth^
ness merely, and of the credit they may thus get for great
labor ; which kind of execution, seen in great perfection in
many works of the Dutch school, and in those of Carlo Dolce,
is that polished '* language " against which I have spoken at
length in various portions of the first volume; nor is it possible
to speak of it with too great severity or contempt, where it has
been made an ultimate end.

But other artists finish for the impression's sake, not to show
their skill, nor to produce a smooth piece of work, but that they
may, with each stroke, render clearer the expression of know-
ledge. And this sort of finish is not, properly speaking, so
much completing the picture as adding to it. It is not that
what is painted is more delicately done, but that infinitely
more is painted. This finish is always noble, and, like all
other noblest things, hardly ever understood or appreciated.

. *^ •* '•-^-* r

; '^^.•^ , /.... :..-.,^, ,,^ ,^^ -"^^^^t*, ^^^ i* Ann.

"•"' Hid „„^ Vmi» «,, si''rr ' r* >'"«*' "otwng of a^

.:Li::::it:i-:,;i;: ;«:^^^^

^p

L!:oy\ 3".'

LilK of 3aroTiv&.C"

'cL . JJi-awin^; of Tree -S LeruB .

118 OF FINISH. [PABT IV.

I must bere endearor, more especially with respect to the state
of quarrel between the scbools of living painters, to illustrate
it tborougbly.

§ 8. In sketcbing tbe outline, suppose of the trunk of a
tree, as in Plate 2. (opposite) fig. 1., it matters comparatively
little whether the outline be given with a bold, or delicate line,
so long as it is outline only. The work is not more " finished "
in one case than in the other ; it is only prepared for being
seen at a greater or less distance. The real refinement or finish
of the line depends, not on its thinness, but on its truly following
the contours of the tree, which it conventionally represents ;
conventionally, I say, because there is no such line round the
tree, in reality ; and it is set down not as an miration, but a
limitaiioa of the form. But if we are to add shade to it as in
fig. 2., the outline must instantly be made proportionally deli-
cate, not for the sake of delicacy as such, but because the
outline will now, in many parts, stand not for limitation of
form merely, but for a portion of the shadow within that form.
Kow, as a limitation it was true, but as a shadow it weuld be
false, for there is no line of black shadow at the edge of the
stem. It must, therefore, be made so delicate as not to detach
itself from the rest of the shadow where shadow exists, and
only to be seen in the light where limitation is still necessary.

Observe, then, the ** finish " of fig. 2. as compared with fig.
1. consists, not in its greater delicacy, but in the addition of a
truth (shadow), a removal, in a great degree, of a convention-
alism (outline). All true finish consists in one or other of
these things. Now, therefore, if we are to " finish *' farther
we must kriow more or see more about the tree. And as the
plurality of persons who draw trees know nothing of them,
and will not look at them, it results necessarily that the effort
to finish is not only vain, but unfinishes — does mischief. In
the lower part of the plate, figs. 3, 4, 5, and 6. are fac-similes
of pieces of line engraving, meant to represent trunks of
trees ; 3. and 4. are the commonly accredited types of tree-
drawing among engravers in the eighteenth century ; 5. and
6. are quite modem ; 3. is from a large and important plate by
Boydell, from Claude's Molten Calf, dated 1781 ; 4 by Boydell
in 1776, from Rubens*s Waggoner ; 5. from a bombastic en-

VOL. III.] OF FINISH. 119

graving, published about twenty years ago by Meulemeester
of Brussels, from Eaphael's Moses at the BurniDg Bush ; and
6. from the foreground of Miller's Modern Italy, after Turner,*

All these represent, as far as the engraving goes, simply
nothing. They are not " finished " in any sense but this, — that
the paper has been covered with lines. 4. is the best, because,
in the original work of Rubens, the lines of the boughs, and
their manner of insertion in the trunk, have been so strongly
marked, that no engraving could quite efface them ; and, inas-
much as it represents these facts in the boughs, that piece of
engraving is more finished than the other examples, while its
own networked texture is still false and absurd ; for there is
no texture of this knitted-stocking-like description on boughs ;
and if there were, it would not be seen in the shadow, but in
the light. Miller's is spirited, and looks lustrous, but has no
resemblance to the original bough of Turner's, which is pale,
and does not glitter. The Netherlands work is, on the whole,
the worst ; because, in its ridiculous double lines, it adds
affectation and conceit to its incapacity. But in all these cases
the engravers have worked in total ignorance both of what is
meant by " drawing," and of the form of a tree, covering their
paper with certain lines, which they have been taught to plough
in copper, as a husbandman ploughs in clay.

§ 9. In the next three examples we have instances of
endeavors at finish by the hands of artists themselves, marking
three stages of knowledge or insight, and three relative stages
of finish. Fig. 7. is Claude's (Liber Veritatis, No. 140., facsimile
by Boydell). It still displays an appalling ignorance of the
forms of trees, but yet is, in mode of execution, better — that is,
more finished— than the engravings, because not aUogether
mechanical, and showing some dim, far-away, blundering me-
mory of a few facts in stems, such as their variations of texture
and roundness, and bits of young shoots of leaves. 8. is Sal-
vator's, facsimiled from part of his original etching of the Find-
ing of CEdipus. It displays considerable power of handling —
not mechanical, but free and firm, and is just so much more
finished than any of the others as it displays more intelligence

* I take this example from Miller, because, on the whole, he is the best
engraver of Turner whom wc have.

120 OF FINISH. [part IV.

about the way in which boughs gather themselves out of the
stem, and about the varying character of their curves. Finally,
fig. 9. is good work. It is the root of the apple-tree in Albert
Durer's Adam and Eve, and fairly represents the wrinkles of
the bark, the smooth portions emergent beneath, and the
general anatomy of growth. All the lines used conduce to the
representation of these facts ; and the work is therefore highly
finished. It still, however, leaves out, as not to be represented
by such kind of lines, the more delicate gradations of light and
shade. I shall now " finish" a little farther, in the next plate
(3.), the mere insertion of the tttfo houghs outlined in fig. 1. I
do this simply by adding assertions of more facts. First, I say
that the whole trunk is dark, as compared with the distant
sky. Secondly, I say that it is rounded by gradations of
shadow, in the various forms shown. And, lastly, I say that
(this being a bit of old pine stripped by storm of its bark) the
wood is fissured in certain directions, showing its grain, or
muscle^ seen in complicated contortions at ^he insertion of the
arm and elsewhere.

§ 10. Now this piece of work, though yet far from complete
(we will better it presently), is yet more finished than any of
the others, not because it is more delicate or more skilful, but
simply because it tells more truth, and admits fewer fallacies.
That which conveys most information, with least inaccuracy, is
always the highest finish ; and the question whether we prefer
art so finished, to art unfinished, is not one of taste at all. It
is simply a question whether we like to know much or little ;
to see accurately or see falsely ; and those whose taste in art
(if they choose so to call it) leads them to like blindness better
than sight, and fallacy better than fact, would do well to set
themselves to some other pursuit than that of art.

§ 11. In the above plate we have examined chiefly the grain
and surface of the boughs ; we have not yet noticed the finish
of their curvature. If the reader will look back to the No. 7.
(Plate 2.), which, in this respect, is the worst of all the set, he
will immediately observe the exemplification it gives of Claude's
principal theory about trees ; namely, that the boughs always
parted from each other, two at a time, in the manner of the
prongs of an ill-made table-fork. It may, perhaps, not be at

LirK ..E o ai ony i

4 Kaimficatiori, according to C'laii^le .

VOL. III.] OF FINISH. 121

once believed that tbis is indeed Claude's theory respecting
tree-structure, without some farther examples of his practice.
I have, therefore, assembled on the next page, Plate 4., some
of the most characteristic passages of ramification in the Liber
Veritatis ; the plates themselves are sufficiently cheap (as they
should be) and accessible to nearly every one, so that the
accuracy of the facsimiles may be easily tested. I have given
in Appendix I. the numbers of the plates from which the
examples are taken, and it will be found that they have been
rather improved than libelled, only omitting, of course, the sur-
rounding leafage, in order to show accurately the branch out-
lines, with which alone we are at present concerned. And it
would be difficult to bring together a series more totally fut^e
and foolish, more singularly wrong (as the false griffin was),
every way at once ; they are stifiP, and yet have no strength ;
curved, and yet have no flexibility ; monotonous, and yet
disorderly ; unnatural, and yet uninventive. They are, in
fact, of that commonest kind of tree bough which a child or
beginner first draws experimentally ; nay, I am well assured,
that if this set of branches had been drawn by a schoolboy,
" out of his own head," his master would hardly have cared to
show them as signs of any promise in him.

§ 12. " Well, but do not the trunks of trees fork, and fork
mostly into two arms at a time V

Yes ; but under as stern anatomical law as the limbs of an
animal ; and those hooked junctions
in Plate 4. are just as accurately
representative of the branching of
wood as this (fig. 2.) is of a neck
and shoulders. We should object
to such a representation of shoul- Fig. 2.

ders, because we have some interest in, and knowledge of,
human form ; we do not object to Claude's trees, because we
have no interest in, nor knowledge of, trees. And if it be still
alleged that such work is nevertheless enough to give any one
an " idea " of a tree, I answer that it never gave, nor ever will
give, an idea of a tree to any one who loves trees ; and that,
moreover, no idea, whatever its pleasantness, is of the smallest
value, which is not founded on simple facts. What pleasant-

VOL. III. (J .^

122 07 7INI8B. [PABT IV.

nes8 may be in wrong ideas we do not here inquire ; the only
question for us has always been, and must always be, What
are the facts ?

§ 13. And assuredly those boughs of Claude's are not facts :
and every one of their contours is, in the worst sense, unfinish-
ed, without even the expectation or faint hope of possible
refinement ever coming into them. I do no{ mean to enter
here into the discussion of the characters of ramification ; that
must be in our separate inquiry into tree-structure generally ;
but I will merely give one piece of Turner's tree-drawing as an
example of what finished work really is, even in outline. In
plate 5. opposite, fi%, 1. is the contour (stripped, like Claude's, of
its foliage) of one of the distant tree-stems in the drawing of
Bolton Abbey. In order to show its perfectness better by
contrast with bad work (as we have had, I imagine* enough of
Claude), I will take a bit of Constable ; fig. 2. is the principal
tree out of the engraving of the Lock on the Stour (Leslie's
Life of Constable). It differs from the Claude outlines merely
in being the kind of work which is produced by an uninventive
person dashing about idly, with a brash, instead of drawing
determinately wrong, with a pen : on the one hand worse than
Claude's, in being lazier ; on the other a little better in being
more free, but, as representative of tree-form, of course still
wholly barbarous. It is worth while to turn back to the
description of the uninventive painter at work on a tree (Vol.
II. chapter on Imaginative Association, § 11.), for this trunk of
Constable's is curiously illustrative of it. One can almost see
him, first bending it to the right ; then, having gone long enough
to the right, turning to the left ; then, having gone long enough
to the left, away to the right again ; then dividing it ; and
''because there is another tree in the picture with two long
branches (in this case there really is), he knows that this ought
to have three or four, which must undulate or go backwards
and forwards," &c., &c.

§ 14. Then study the bit of Turner work: note first its
quietness, unattractiveness, apparent carelessness whether you
look at it or not ; next note the subtle curvatures within the
narrowest limits, and, when it branches, the unexpected, out of
the way things it does, just what nobody could have thought

VOL. ni.] OF riNiBH. 123

of its doing ; shooting out like a letter Y, with a nearly straight
branch, and then correcting its stiffness with a zig-zag behind,
80 that the boughs, nglj individually, are beautiful in unison.
(In what I have hereafter to saj about trees, I shall^need to
dwell much on this character of unexpectedness. A bough is
never drawn rightly if it is not wayward, so that although, as
just now said, quiet At first, not caring to be looked at, the
moment it is looked at, it seems bent on astonbhing you, and
doing the last things you expect it to do.) But our present
purpose is only to note the Jinish of the Turner curves^ which,
though they seem straight and stiff at first, are, when you look
long, seen to be all tremulous, perpetually wavering along
every edge into endless melody of change. This is finish in
line, in exactly the same sense that a fine melody is finished in
the association of its notes.

§ 15, And now, farther, let us take a little bit of the
Tumerian tree in light and shade. I said above I would
better the drawing of that pine trunk, which, though it has
incipient shade, and muscular action, has no texture, nor local
colour. Now, I take about an inch and a half of Turner's ash
trunks (one of the nearer ones in this same drawing of Bolton
Abbey {^g. 3. Plate 5.), and this I cannot better ; this is per-
fectly finished ; it is not possible to add more truth to it on
that scale. Texture of bark, anatomy of muscle beneath,
reflected lights in recessed hollows, stains of dark moss, and
flickering shadows from the foliage above, all are there, as
clearly as the human hand can mark them. I place a bit of
trunk by Constable (fig. 5.),* from another plate in Leslie's
Life of him (a dell in Helmingham Park, Suffolk), for the sake
of the same comparison in shade that we have above in con-
tour. You see Constable does not know whether he is drawing
moss or shadow : those dark touches in the middle are con-
fosed in his mind between the dark stains on the trunk and its

♦ Fig. 5. ia not, howeyer, so lustrtnu ob Constable's; I cannot help this,
having giren the original plate to my good friend Mr. Consen, with strict
charge to fiicsimile it faithfoUy : but the figure is all the fairer, as a repre-
sentation of Constable's art, for those mezzotints in Leslie's life of him have
many qualities of drawing which are quite wanting in Constable's blots of
colour. The comparison shall be made elaborately, between picture and
picture, in the section on Vegetation.

124 OF FINISH. [part IV.

dark side ; there is no anatomy, no cast shadow, nothing hut
idle sweeps of the hrush, vaguelj circulaif. The thing is much
darker than Tamer's, hut k is not, therefore, finished ; it is
only hlackened. And " to hlacken " is indeed the proper word
for all attempts at finish without knowledge. Ail true finish
is added fact ; and Turner's word for finishing a picture was
always this significant one, " carry forward." But lahor
without added knowledge can only hlacken or stain a picture,
it cannot finish it.

§ 16. And this is especially to he rememhered as we pass from
comparatively large and distant objects, such as this single
trunk, to the more divided and nearer features of foreground.
Some degree of ignorance may be hidden, in completing what
is far away ; hut there is no concealment possible in close work,
and darkening instead of finishing becomes then the engraver's
only possible resource. It has always been a wonderful thing
to me to hear people talk of making foregrounds " vigorous,"
" marked," " forcible," and so on. If you will lie down on
your breast on the next bank you come to (which is bringing
it close enough, I should think, to give it all the force it is
capable of), you will see, in the cluster of leaves and grass close
to your face, something as delicate as this, which I have actu-
ally so drawn, on the opposite page, a mystery of soft shadow
in the depths of the grass, with indefinite forms of leaves, which
you cannot trace or count, within it, and out of that, the nearer
leaves coming in every subtle gradation of tender light and
flickering form, quite beyond all delicacy of pencilling to fol-
low ; and yet you will rise up from that bank (certainly not
making it appear coarser by drawing a little back from it),
and profess to represent it by a few blots of " forcible " fore-
ground color. " Well, but I cannot draw every leaf that I
see on the bank." No, for as we saw, at the beginning of this
chapter, that no human work could be finished so as to express
the delicacy of nature, so neither can it be finished so as to ex-
press the redundance of nature. Accept that necessity ; but do
not deny it ; do not call your work finished, when you have, in
engraving, substituted a confusion of coarse black scratches, or
in water-color a few ^^^y blots, for ineffable organic beauty.
Follow that beauty as far as you can, remembering that just as

'm

:im

iiiai'
blsbaj
dti

\\i

onm
andc

tnnl

pm

the

k^

ner'

ofl

fee

Bn

a\>

iu]

01

t
t

TOL. m.] OF FINISH. 125

far as you see, know, and represent it, just so far your work is
finished ; as far as you fall short of it, your work is t^nfinished ;
and as far as you substitute any other thing for it, your work
is spoiled.

§ 17. How far Turner followed it, is not easily shown ; for
his finish is so delicate as to be nearly uncopiable. I have just
said it was not possible to finish that ash trunk of his, farther,
on such a scale.* By using a magnify in g-glass, and giving the
same help to the spectator, it might perhaps be possible to add
and exhibit a few more details ; but even as it is, I cannot by
line engraving express all that there is in that piece of tree-
trunk, on the same scale. I have therefore magnified the upper
part of it in fig. 4. (Plate 5.), • so that the reader may better see
the beautifhl lines of curvature into which even its slightest
shades and spots are cast. Every quarter of an inch in Tur-
ner's drawings will bear magnifying in the same way ; much
of the finer work in them can hardly be traced, except by the
keenest sight, until it is magnified. In his painting of Ivy
Bridget the veins are drawn on the wings of a butterfly, not
above three lines in diameter ; and in one of his smaller draw-
ings of Scarborough, in my own possession, the muscle-shells
on the beach are rounded, and some shown as shut, some as
open, though none are as large as one of the letters of this
type ; and yet this is the man who was thought to belong to
the " dashing " school, literally because most people had not
patience or delicacy of sight enough to trace his endless detail.

§ 18. " Suppose it was so," perhaps the reader replies ; " still
I do not like detail so delicate that it can hardly" be seen."
Then you like nothing in Nature (for you will find she always
carries her detaQ too far to be traced). This point, however,
we shall examine hereafter ; it is not the question now whether
we like finish or not ; our only inquiry here is, what finish
means ; and I trust the reader is beginning to be satisfied that
it does indeed mean nothing but consummate and accumulated
truth, and that our old monotonous test must still serve us here

* It is of the exact size of the original, the whole drawing being about
15^ inches by 11 in.

f An oil painting (about 8 ft. by 4 ft. 6 in.), and very broad in its masses.
Ill the possession of E. Bicknell, Esq.

126 OF 7IKI8B. [part n

as elsewhere. And it wUl become us to consider seriously why
(if indeed it be so) we dislike this kind of finish-dislike an
accnmnlation of truth. For assuredly all authority is against
us, and no truly great man can he named in the arts — hut it is
that of (me who finished to his utmost. Take Leonardo, Michael
Angelo, and Eaphael for a triad, to begin with. They all
completed their detail with such subtlety of touch and grada-
tion, that, in a careful drawing by any of the three, you cannot
see where the pencil ceased to touch the paper ; the stroke of
it is so tender, that, when you look close to the drawing you
can see nothing; you only see the effect of it a little way
back ! Thus tender in execution, — ^and so complete in detail,
that Leonardo must needs draw every several vein in the little
agates and pebbles of the gravel under the feet of the St. Anne
in the Louvre. Take a quartett after the triad — Titian, Tin-
toret, Bellini, and Veronese. Examine the vine-leaves of the
Bacchus and Ariadne, (Titian's) in the National Gallery ; ex-
amine the borage blossoms, painted petal by petal, though
lying loose on the table, in Titian's Supper at Emmaus, in the
Louvre, or the snail-shells on the ground in his Entombment ;*
examine the separately designed patterns on every drapery of
Veronese, in his Marriage in Gana ; go to Venice and see how
Tintoret paints the strips of black bark on the birch trunk
that sustains the platform in his Adoration of the Magi : how
Bellini fills the rents of his ruined walls with the most exquisite
clusters of the erba della Madonna.t You will find them all
in a tale. Take a quintett after the quartett — Francia, An-
gelico, Durer, Hemling, Perugino, — and still the witness is
one, still the same striving in all to such utmost perfection as
their knowledge and hand could reach.

Who shall gainsay these men ? Above all, who shall gainsay
them when they and Nature say precisely the same thing ? for
where does nature pause in her finishing — that finishing which
consists not in the smoothing of surface, but the filling of space,
and the multiplication of life and thought ]

* These snail-sliells are very notable, occurring as they do in, perhaps,
the very grandest and broadest of all Titian's compositions.

f Linaria Cymbalaria, the ivy-leaved toadflax of English gardens.

roL. in.] ov msiBJu V2l

Who shall gainsay them 1 I, for one, dare not ; bat accept
their teaching, with Nature's, in all humbleness.

** But is there, then, no good in any work which does not
pretend to perfectness ? Is there no saving chiuse from this
terrible requirement of completion 1 And if there be none,
what is the meaning of all you have said elsewhere about
rudeness as the glory of Gothic work, and, even a few pages
back, about the danger of finishing, for our modem workmen V*

Indeed there are many saving clauses, and there is much
good in imperfect work. Bat we had better cast the con-
sideration of these drawbacks and exceptions into another
chapter, and close this one, without obscuring, in any wise,
our broad conclusion that '* finishing" means in art simply
*' telling more truth ;'' and that whatever we have in any sort
begun wisely, it is good to finbh thoroaghly.

128 07 THB UBS OV FICXUABS. [PAAT IV.

CHAPTER X.

07 THE USE OF PICTURES.

§ 1. I AM afraid this will be a difficult chapter ; one of draw-
backs, qualifications, and exceptions. But the more I see of
nsefril truths, the more I find that, like human beings, they are
eminently biped ; and, although, as far as apprehended by hu-
man intelligence, they are usually seen in a crane-like posture,
standing on one leg, whenever they are to be stated so as to
maintain themselves against all attack it is quite necessary they
should stand on two, and have their complete balance on oppo-
site fulcra.

§ 2. I doubt not that one objection, with which as well as
with another we may begin, has struck the reader very forci-
bly, after comparing the illustrations above given from Turner,
Constable, and Claude. He will wonder how it was that Tur-
ner, finishing in this exquisite way, and giving truths by the
thousand, where other painters gave only one or two, yet, of
all painters, seemed to obtain least acknowledgeable resemblance
to nature, so that the world cried out upon him for a madman,
at the moment when he was giving exactly the highest and
most consummate truth that had ever been seen in landscape.

And he will wonder why still there seems reason for this out-
cry. Still, after what analysis and proof of his being right
have as yet been given, the reader may perhaps be saying to
himself : " All this reasoning is of no use to me. Turner does
not give me the idea of nature ; I do not feel before one of his
pictures as I should in the real scene. Constable takes me out
into the shower, and Claude into the sun ; and De Wint makes
me feel as if I were walking in the fields ; but Turner keeps
me in the house, and I know always that I am looking at a
picture."

VOL. III.] OF THB USB OF PICTUBE8. 129

I might answer to this ; Well, what else should he do ? If
you want to feel as if you were in a shower, cannot you go and
get wet without help from Constable ? If you want to feel as
if you were walking in the fields, cannot you go and walk in
them without help from De Wint ? But if you want to sit in
your room and look at a beautiful picture, why should you
blame the artist for giving you one ? This was the answer
actually made to me by vanous journalists, when first I showed
that Turner was truer than other painters : " Nay," said they,
" we do not want truth, we want something else than truth ; we
would not have nature, but something better than nature."

§ 3. I do not mean to accept that answer, although it seems
at this moment to make for me : I have never accepted it. As
I raise my eyes from the paper, to think over the curious min-
gling in it, of direct error, and far away truth, I see upon the
room- walls, first. Turner's drawing of the chain of the Alps from
the Superga above Turin ; then a study of a block of gneiss at
Ghamouni, with the purple Aiguilles-Bouges behind it ; another,
of the towers of the Swiss Fribourg, with a cluster of pine for-
est behind them ; then another Turner, Isola Bella, with the
blue opening of the St. Gothard in the distance ; and then a
fair bit of thirteenth century illumination, depicting, at the top
of the page, the Salutation ; and beneath, the painter who
painted it, sitting in his little convent cell, with a legend above
him to this effect —

** ega foijeg s^ei l)nnc librtttn/*

I, John, wi-ote this book.

None of these things are bad pieces of art ; and yet, — if it
were offered to me to have, instead of them, so many windows,
out of which I should see, first, the real chain of the Alps from
the Superga ; then the real- block of gneiss, and Aiguilles-
Rouges ; then the real towers of Fribourg, and pine forest ; the
real Isola Bella ; and, finally, the true Mary and Elizabeth ;
and beneath them, the actual old monk at work in his cell, — I
would very unhesitatingly change my five pictures for the fiVQ
windows ; and so, I apprehend, would most people, not, it seems
to me, unwisely.

"Well, then," the reader goes on to question me, "the

ISO OF THE USE OF PICTURES. [PABT IT.

more closely the picture resembles such a window the better it
must be V

Yes.

'' Then if Turner does not ^ve me the impression of such a
window, that is of Nature, there must be something wrong in
Turner ?"

Yes.

** And if Constable and De Wint give me the impression of
such a window, there must be something right in Constable
and De Wint ?"

Yes

" And something more right than in Turner V*

No.

"Will you explain yourself?"

I have explained myself, long ago, and that fully ; perhaps
too fully for the simple sum of the explanation to be remem-
bered. If the reader will glance back to, and in the present
state of our inquiry, reconsider in the first volume, Part I.
Sec. I. Chap, v., and Part II. Sec. i. Chap, vii., he will find
our present difficulties anticipated! There are some truths,
easily obtained, which give a deceptive resemblance to Nature ;
others only to be obtained with difficulty, which cause no de-
ception, but give inner and deep resemblance. These two
classes of truths cannot be obtained together ; choice must be
made between them. The bad painter gives the cheap decep-
tive resemblance. The good painter gives the precious non-
deceptive resemblance. Constable perceives in a landscape
that the grass is wet, the meadows flat, and the boughs shady ;
that is to say, about as much as, I suppose, might in general
be apprehended, between them, by an intelligent fawn and a
skylark. Turner perceives at a glance the whole sum of
visible truth open to human intelligence. So Berghem per-
ceives nothing in a figure, beyond the flashes of light on the
folds of its dress ; but Michael Angelo perceives every flash of
thought that is passing through its spirit ; and Constable and
Terghem may imitate windows ; Turner and Michael Angelo
can by no means imitate windows. But Turner and Michael
Angelo are nevertheless the best.

§ 4. " Well but," the reader persists, " you admitted just

you III.] OP THE tJSE OF PICTUBE8. 131

now that because Turner did not get his work to look like a
window there was something wrong in him."

I did so ; if he were quite right he would have all truth, low
as well as high ; that is, he would be Nature and not Turner ;
but that is impossible to man. There is much that is wrong in
him ; much that is infinitely wrong in all human effort. But,
nevertheless, in some an infinity of Bettemess above other hu-
man effort.

" Well, but you said you would change your Turners for
windows, why not, therefore, for Constables V*

Nay, I did not say that I would change them for windows
merely, but for windows which commanded the chain of the
Alps and Isola Bella. That is to say, for all the truth that
there is in Turner, and all the truth besides which is not in
him ; but I would not change them for Constables, to have a
small piece of truth which is not in Turner, and none of the
mighty truth which there is.

§ 5. Thus far, then, though the subject is one requiring
somewhat lengthy explanation, it involves no real difficulty.
There is not the slightest inconsistency in the mode in which
throughout this work I have desired the relative merits of
painters to be judged. I have always said, he who is closest
to Nature is best. All rules are useless, all genius is useless,
all labor is useless, if you do not give facts ; the more facts
you give the greater you are ; and there is no fact so unimpor-
tant as to be prudently despised, if it be possible to represent
it. Nor, but that I have long known the truth of Herbert's
lines,

" Some mea are
Fun of themflelYes, and answer their own notion,"

would it have been without intense surprise that I heard
querulous readers asking, *' how it was possible *' that I could
praise Pre-Baphaelitism and Turner also. For, from the
beginning of this book to this page of it, I have never praised
Turner highly for any other cause than that he gave facts
more delicately, more Pre-Eaphaelitically, than other men.
Careless readers, who dashed at the descnptions and missed
the arguments, took up their own conceptions of the cause of

132 OF THE USE OP PICTURES. [PART IV.

my liking Turner, and said to themselves : " Turner cannot
draw, Turner is generalizing, vague, visionary ; and the Pre-
Haphaelites are hard and distinct. How can any one likff
both ?"* But / never said that Turner could not draw,
/never said that he was vague or visionary. What / said
was, that nobody had ever drawn so well : that nobody was so
certain, so tt»-visionary ; that nobody had ever given so many
hard and downright facts. Glance back to the first volume,
and note the expressions now. " He is the only painter who
ever drew a mountain or a stone ;t the only painter who can
draw the stem of a tree ; the only painter who has ever drawn
the sky, previous artists having only drawn it typically or
partially, but he absolutely and universally." Note how he is
praised in his rock drawing for " not selecting a pretty or
interesting morsel here or there, but giving the whole truth,
with all the relations of its parts." J Observe how the great
virtue of the landscape of Cima da Conegliano and the early
sacred painters is said to be giving " entire, exquisite, humble,

* People of any sense, however, confined thcmselyes to wonder. I
think it was only in the Art Journal of September Ist, 1854, that any
writer had the meanness to charge me with insincerity. *' The pictures of
Tomer and the works of the Pre-Raphaelites are t^e very antipodes of
each other ; it is, therefore, impossible that one and the same individual
can with any ihovi of sincerity [Note, by the way, the Art-Union
has no idea that real sincerity is a thing existent or possible at alL
All that it expects or hopes of human nature is, that it should have
tkoto of sincerity,] stand forth as the thick and thin [I perceive
the writer intends to teach me English, as well as honesty,] eulogist
of both. "With a certain knowledge of art, such as may be possessed
by the author of English Painters, [Note, farther, that the eminent
critic does not so much as know the title of the book he is criticising,] it is
not difficult to praise any bad or mediocre picture that may be qualified
with extravagance or mysticisuL This author owes the public a heavy
debt of explanation, which a lifetime spent in ingenious reconciliations
would not suffice to discharge. A fervent admiration of certain pictures
by Turner, and, at the same time, of some of the severest productions of
the Pre-Raphaelites, presents an insuperable problem to persons whose
taste in art is regulated by definite principles."

t Part II. Sec. I. Chap. VII. § 46.

t Part II. Sec. IV. Chap. IV. § 23., and Part II. Sec. I. Chap. VII. § 9.
The whole of the Preface to the Second Edition is written to maintain
this one point of specific detail against the advocates of generalization.

VOL. III.] OF THE USB OP PICTURES. 133

realization — a strawberry-plant in the foreground with a blos-
som, and a berry just set, and one half ripe^ and one ripe, all
patiently and innocently painted from the real thing, and
therefore most divine'* Then re-read the following paragraph
(§10.), carefully, and note its conclusion, that the thoroughly
great men are those who have done everything thoroughly,
and who have never despised anything, however small, of
God*s making ; with the instance given of Wordsworth's daisy
casting its shadow on a stone ; and the following sentence,
" Our painters must come to this before they have done their
duty.'* And yet, when our painters did come to this, did do
their duty, and did paint the daisy with its shadow (this pas-
sage having been written years before Pre-Raphaelitism was
thought of), people wondered how I could possibly like what
was neither more nor less than the precise fulfilment of my
own most earnest exhortations and highest hopes.

§ 6. Thus far, then, all I have been saying is absolutely
consistent, and tending to one simple end. Turner is praised
for his truth and finish ; that truth of which I am beginning to
give examples. Pre-Raphaelitism is praised for its truth and
finish ; and the whole duty inculcated upon the artist is that of
being in all respects as like Nature as possible.

And yet this is not all I have to do. There is more than
this to be inculcated upon the student, more than this to be
admitted or established before the foundations of just judgment
can be laid.

For, observe, although I believe any sensible person would
exchange his pictures, however good, for windows, he would
not feel, and ought not to feel, that the arrangement was
entirely gainful to him. He would feel it was an exchange of
a less good of one kind, for a greater of another kind^ but that
it was definitely excliange, not pure gain, not merely getting
more truth instead of less. The picture would be a serious
loss ; something gone which the actual landscape could never
restore, though it might give something better in its place, as
age may ^ve to the heart something better than its youthful
delusion, but cannot give again the sweetness of that delusion.

§ 7. What is this in the picture which is precious to us, and
yet is not natural % Hitherto our arguments have tended, on

134 OF THE U8K OF PICTURES. [PART IV.

the whole, somewhat to the depreciation of art ; and the
reader maj every now and then, so far as he has been con-
vinced by them, have been inclined to say, " Why not give np
this whole science of Mockery at once, since its only virtue is
in representing facts, and it cannot, at best, represent them
completely, besides being liable to all manner of shortcom-
ings and dishonesties, — why not keep to the facts, to real
fields, and hills, and men, and let this dangerous punting
alone V*

No, it would not be well to do this. Painting has its peculiar
virtues, not only consistent with but even resulting from, its
shortcomings and weaknesses. Let us see what these virtues
are.

§ 8. I must ask permission, as I have sometimes done before,
to begin apparently a long way from the point.

Not long ago, as I was leaving one of the towns of Switzer-
land early in the morning, I saw in the clouds behind the
houses an Alp which I did not know, a grander Alp than any
I knew, nobler than the Bchreckhorn or the Monch ; terminated,
as it seemed, on one side by a precipice of almost unimagina-
ble height ; on the other, sloping away for leagues in one field
of lustrous ice, clear and fair and blue, flashing here and there
into silver under the morning sun. For a moment I received
a sensation of ^ much sublimity as any natural object could
possibly excite ; the next moment, I saw that my unknown
Alp was the glass roof of one of the workshops of the town,
rising above its nearer houses, and rendered atrial and indistinct
by some pure blue wood smoke which rose from intervening
chimneys.

It is evident, that so far as the mere delight of the eye was
concerned, the glass roof was here equal, or at least equal for
a moment, to the Alp. Whether the power of the object over
the heart was to be small or great, depended altogether upon
what it was understood for, upon its being taken possession of
and apprehended in its full nature, either as a granite mountain
or a group of panes of glass ; and thus, always, the real majesty
of the appearance of the thing to us, depends upon the degree
in which we ourselves possess the power of understanding it, —
that penetrating, possession taking power of the imagination,

VOL. III.] OP THE USB OP PICTURES. 136

which has been long ago defined* as the veiy life of the man,
considered as a seeing creature. For though the casement had
indeed been an Alp, there are many persons on whose minds
it would have produced no more effect than the glass roof. It
would have been to them a glittering object of a certain appa-
rent length and breadth, and whether of glass or ice, whether
twenty feet in length, or twenty leagues, would have made no
difference to them ; or, rather, would not have been in any
wise conceived or considered by them. Examine the nature
of your own emotion (if you feel it) at the sight of the Alp,
and you find all the brightness of that emotion hanging, like
dew on gossamer, on a curious web of subtle fancy and imper-
fect knowledge. First, you have a vague idea of its size,
coupled with wonder at the work of the great Builder of its
walls and foundations, then an a]>prehen8ion of its eternity, a
pathetic sense of its perpetualness, and your own transientness,
as of the grass upon its sides ; then, and in this very sadness,
a sense of strange companionship with past generations in
seeing what they saw. They did not see the clouds that are
floating over your head ; nor the cottage wall on the other
side of the field ; nor the road by which you are travelling.
But they saw that. The wall of granite in the heavens was
the same to them as to you. They have ceased to look upon
it ; you will soon cease to look also, and the granite wall will
be for others. Then, mingled with these more solemn imagina-
tions, come the understandings of the gifts and glories of the
Alps, the fancying forth of all the fountains that well from its
rocky walls, and strong rivers that are bom out of its ice, and
of all the pleasant valleys that wind between its cliffs, and all
the chlLlets that gleam among its clouds, and happy farmsteads
couched upon its pastures ; while together with the thoughts of
these, rise strange sympathies with all the unknown of human
life, and happiness, and death, signified by that narrow white
flame of the everlasting snow, seen so far in the morning sky*
These images, and far more than these, lie at the root of the
emotion which you feel at the sight of the Alp. You may not
trace them in your heart, for there is a great deal more in your
heart, of evil and good, than you ever can trace ; but they
* YoL IL Chapter on Penetrative Ima^nation.

136 OF THE USB OF PICTURES, [PART IV.

stir you and quicken you for all tliat. Assuredly, so far as
you feel more at beholding the snowy mountain than any
other object of the same sweet silvery grey, these are the kind
of images which cause you to do so ; and, observe, these are
nothing more than a greater apprehension of the facts of the
thing. "We call the power " Imagination," because it imagines
or conceives ; but it is only noble imagination if it imagines or
conceives the truth. And, according to the degree of know-
ledge possessed, and of sensibility to the pathetic or impressive
character of the things known, will be the degree of this
imaginative delight.

§ 9. But the main point to be noted at present is, that if the
imagination can be excited to this its peculiar work, it matters
comparatively little what it is excited by. If the smoke had
not cleared partially away, the glass roof might have pleased
me as well as an alp, until I had quite lost sight of it ; and if,
in a picture, the imagination can be once caught, and, without
absolute affront from some glaring fallacy, set to work in its
own field, the imperfection of the historical details themselves
is, to the spectator's enjoyment, of small consequence.

Hence it is, that poets and men of strong feeling in general,
are apt to be among the very worst judges of painting. The
slightest hint is enough for them. Tell them that a white
stroke means a ship, and a black stain, a thunderstorm, and
they will be perfectly satisfied with both, and immediately
proceed to remember all that they ever felt about ships and
thunderstorms, attributing the whole current and fulness of
their own feelings to the painter's work ; while probably, if
the picture be really' good, and full of stem fact, the poet, or
man of feeling, will find some of its fact in his way, out of the
particular course of his own thoughts, — ^be offended at it, take
to criticizing and wondering at it, detect, at last, some imper-
fection in it, — such as must be inherent in all human work, —
and so finally quarrel with, and reject the whole thing. Thus,
Wordsworth writes many sonnets to Sir George Beaumont and
Hay don, none to Sir Joshua or to Turner.

§ 10. Hence also the error into which many superficial
artists fall, in speaking of " addressing the imagination " as the
only end of art. It is quite true that the imagination must be

VOL, III.] OPiTHE USE OP PICTURES. 107

addressed ; but it may be very sufficiently addressed by the
stain left by an ink-bottle thrown at the wall. The thrower
has little credit, though an imaginative observer may find, per-
haps, more to amuse him in the erratic nigrescence than in
many a labored picture. And thus, in a slovenly or ill-
finished picture, it is no credit to the artist that he has *' ad-
dressed the imagination ;" nor is the success of such an appeal
any criterion whatever of the merit of the work. The duty of
an artist is not only to address and awaken, but to guide the
imagination ; and there is no safe guidance but that of simple
concurrence with fact. It is no matter that the picture takes
the fancy of A. or B., that 0. writes sonnets to it, and D. feels
it to be divine. This is still the only question for the artist, or
for us : — " Is it a fact ? Are things really so ? Is the picture an
Alp among pictures, full, firm, eternal ; or only a glass house,
frail, hollow, contemptible, demolishable ; calling, at all honest
hands, for detection and demolition 1"

§ 11. Hence it is also that so much grievous difficulty stands
in the way of obtaining real opinion about pictures at all.
Tell any man, of the slightest imaginative power, that such and
such a picture is good, and means this or that : tell him, for
instance, that a Claude is good, and that it means trees, and
grass, and water ; and forthwith, whatever faith, virtue, humi-
lity, and imagination there are in the man, rise up to help
Claude, and to declare that indeed it is all " excellent good,
i*faith ;" and whatever in the course of his life he has felt of
pleasure in trees and grass, he will begin to reflect upon and
enjoy anew, supposing all the while it is the picture he is
enjoying. Hence, when once a painter's reputation is accre-
dited, it must be a stubborn kind of person indeed whom he
will not please, or seem to please ; for all the vain and weak
people pretend to be pleased with him, for their own credit's
sake, and all the humble and imaginative people seriously and
honestly fancy they are pleased with him, deriving indeed,
very certainly, delight from his work, but a delight which, if
they were kept in the same temper, they would equally derive
(and, indeed, constantly do derive) from the grossest daub
that can be manufactured in imitation by the pawnbroker. Is,
therefore, the pawnbroker's imitation as good as the original ?

188 OP THE USE OF PICTURES. [PABT IT.

Not SO. There is the certahi test of goodness and badness,
which I am always striving to get people to use. As long as
they are satisfied if they find their feelings pleasantly stirred
and their fancy gaily occupied, so long there is for them no
good, no bad. Anything may please, or anything displease,
them ; and their entire manner of thought and talking about
art is mockery, and all their judgments are laborious injustices.
But let them, in the teeth of their pleasure or displeasure,
simply put the calm question, — Is it so ? Is that the way a
stone is shaped, the way a cloud is wreathed, the way a leaf
is veined ? and they are safe. They will do no more injustice
to themselves nor to other men ; they will learn to whose
guidance they may trust their imagination, and from whom
they must for ever withhold its reins.

§ 12. " Well, but why have you dragged in this poor specta-
tor's imagination at all, if you have nothing more to say for it
than this ; if you are merely going to abuse if, and go back to
your tiresome facts V*

Nay ; I am not going to abuse it. On the contrary, I have
to assert, in a temper profoundly venerant of it, that though we
must not suppose everything is right when this is aroused, we
may be sure that something is wrong when this is not aroused.
The something wrong may be in the spectator or in the picture ;
and if the picture be demonstrably in accordance with truth, the
odds are, that it is in the spectator ; but there is wrong some-
where ; for the work of the picture is indeed eminently to get at
this imaginative power in the beholder, and all its facts are of
no use whatever if it does not. No matter how much truth it
tells if the hearer be asleep. Its first work is to wake him, then
to teach him.

§ 13. Now, observe, while, as it penetrates into the nature of
things, the imagination is preeminently a beholder of things as
they are, it is, in its creative function, an eminent beholder of
things when and wJiere. they are not ; a seer, that is, in the
prophetic sense, calling " the things that are not as though they
were," and for ever delighting to dwell on that which is not
tangibly present. And its great function being the calling forth,
or back, that which is not visible to bodily sense, it has of
course been made to take delight in the fulfilment of its proper

VOL. III.] OP THE USE OP PICTUJIES. 139

ftinction, and preeminently to enjoy, and spend its energy, on
things past and futnre, or out of sight, rather than things present,
or in sight. So that if the imagination is to be called to take
delight in any object, it will not be always well, if we can help
it, to pat the real object there, before it. The imagination
would on the whole rather have it not there ; — the reality and
substance are rather in the imagination's way ; it would think
a good deal move of the thing if it could not see it. Hence,
that strange and sometimes fatal charm » which there is in all
things as long as we wait for them, and the moment we have
lost them ; but which fades while we possess them ; — ^that
sweet bloom of all that is far away, which perishes under
our touch. Yet the feeling of this is not a weakness ; it is one
of the most glorious gifts of the human mind, making the
whole infinite future, and imperishable past, a richer inherit-
ance, if faithfully inherited, than the changeful, frail, fleeting
present ; it is also one of the many witnesses in us to the
truth that these present and tangible things are not meant to
satisfy us. The instinct becomes a weakness only when it is
weakly indidged, and when the faculty which was intended by
God to give back to us what we have lost, and gild for us
what is to come, is so perverted as only to darken what we
possess. But, perverted or pure, the instinct itself is everlast-
ing, and the substantial presence even of the things which we
love the best, will inevitably and for ever be found wanting in
one strange and tender charm, which belonged to the dreams
of them.

§ 14. Another character of the imagination is equally constant,
and, to our present inquiry, of yet greater importance. It is
eminently a weariable faculty, eminently delicate, and incapable
of bearing fatigue ; so that if we give it too many objects at a
time to employ itself upon, or very grand ones for a long time
together, it fails under the effort, becomes jaded, exactly as the
limbs do by bodily fatigue, and incapable of answering any
farther appeal till it has had rest. And this is the real nature
of the weariness which is so often felt in travelling, from seeing
too much. It is not that the monotony and number of the
beautifiil things seen have made them valueless, but that the
imaginative power has been overtaxed ; and, instead of letting

140 OF THE USB OP PICTURES. [PABT IV.

it rest, the traveller, wondering to find himself dull, and inca-
pable of admiration, seeks for something more admirable,
excites, and torments, and drags the poor fainting imagination
up hj the shoulders : '' Look at this, and look at that, and this
more wonderful still !*' — until the imaginative facnltj- faints
utterly away, beyond all farther torment or pleasure, dead for
many a day to come; and the despairing prodigal takes to
horse-racing in the Gampagna, good now £ox nothing else than
that ; whereas, if the imagination had only been laid down on
the grass, among simple things, and left quiet for a little while,
it would have come to itself gradually, recovered its strength
and color, and soon been fit for work again. So that, whenever
the imagination is tired, it is necessary to find for it some-
thing, not more admirable but less admirable ; such as in that
weak state it can deal with ; then give it peace, and it will
recover.

§ 15. I well recollect the walk on which I first found out
this ; it was on the winding road from Sallenclie, sloping up
the hills towards St. Gervais, one cloudless Sunday afternoon.
The road circles softly between bits of rocky bank and
mounded pasture; little cottages and chapels gleaming out
from among the trees at every turn. Behind me, some leagues
in length, rose the jagged range of the mountains of the
Beposoir ; on the other side of the valley, the mass of the
Aiguille de Varens, heaving its seven thousand feet of cliff
into the air at a single effort, its gentle gift of waterfall, the
Nant d'Arpenaz, like a pillar of cloud at its feet ; Mont Blanc
and all it,s aiguilles, one silver flame, in front of me ; marvel-
lous blocks of mossy granite and dark glades of pine around
me ; but I could enjoy nothing, and could not for a long while
make out what was the matter with me, until at last I dis-
covered that if I confined myself to one thing, — and that a
little thing, — a tuft of moss, or a single crag at the top of the
Varens, or a wreath or two of foam at the bottom of the Nant
d*Arpenaz, I began to enjoy it directly, because then I had
mind enough to put into the thing, and the enjoyment arose
from the quantity of the imaginative energy I could bring to
bear upon it ; but when I looked at or thought of all together,
moss, stones, Varens, Nant d'Arpenaz, and Mont Blanc, I had

VOL. III.] or THE USE OF TICTURES. 141

not mind enough to give to all, and none were of any value.
The conclusion which would have been formed, upon this, by
a German philosopher, would have been that the Mont Blanc
teas of no value ; that ho and his imagination only were of
value ; that the Mont Blanc, in fact, except so far as he was
able to look at it, could not be considered as having any
existence. But the only conclusion which occurred to me as
reasonable under the circumstances (I have seen no ground
for altering it since) was, that I was an exceedingly small
creature, much tired, and, at the moment, not a little stupid,
for whom a blade of grass, or a wreath of foam, was quite food
enough and to spare, and that if I tried to take any more, I
should make myself ill. Whereupon, associating myself fra-
ternally with some ants, who were deeply interested in the
conveyance of some small sticks over the road, and rather, as
I think they generally are, in too great a hurry about it, I
returned home in a little while with great contentment, think-
ing how well it was ordered that, as Mont Blanc and his pine
forests could not be everywhere, nor all the world come to see
them, the human mind, on the whole, should enjoy itself most
surely in an ant-like manner, and be happy and busy with the
bits of stick and grains of crystal that fall in its way to be
handled, in daily duty.

§ 16. It follows evidently from the first of these characters
of the imagination, its dislike of substance and presence, that
a picture has in some measure even an advantage with us in
not being real. The imagination rejoices in having something
to do, springs up with all its willing power, flattered and
happy ; and ready with its fairest colors and most tender pen-
cilling, to prove itself worthy of the trust, and exalt into sweet
supremacy the shadow that has been confided to its fondness.
And thus, so far from its being at all an object to the painter
to make his work look real, he ought to dread such a consum-
mation as the loss of one of its most precious claims upon the
heart. So far from striving to convince the beholder that what
he sees is substance, his mind should be to what he paints as
the fire to the body on the pile, burning away the ashes, leav-
ing the unconquerable shade — an immortal dream. So certain
is this, that the slightest local success in giving the deceptive

142 OF THE USE OF PICTURES. [PABT IT.

appearance of reality — ^the imitation, for instance, of the tex-
ture of a bit of wood, with its grain in relief — will instantly
destroy the charm of a whole picture ; the imagination feels
itself insulted and injured, and passes by with cold contempt ;
nay, however beautiful the whole scene may be, as of late in
much of our highly wrought painting for the stage, the mere
fact of its being deceptively real is enough to make us tire of
it ; we may be surprised and pleased for a moment, but the
imagination will not on those terms be persuaded to give any
of its help, and, in a quarter of an hour, we wish the scene
would change.

§ 17. '* Well, but then, what becomes of all these long dog-
matic chapters of yours about giving nothing but the truth,
and as much truth as possible V

The chapters are all quite right. " Nothing but the Truth,*'
I say stilL " As much Truth as possible," I say still. But
truth so presented, that it will need the help of the imagina-
tion to make it real. Between the painter and the beholder,
each doing his proper part, the reality should be sustained ;
and after the beholding imagination has come forward and
done its best, then, with its help, and in the full action of it, the
beholder should be able to say, I feel as if I were at the real
place, or seeing the real incident. But not without that help.

§ 18. Farther, in consequence of that other character of the
imagination, fatiguableness, it is a g^eat advantage to the pic-
ture that it need not present too much at once, and that what
it does present may be so chosen and ordered as not only to bo
more easily seized, but to give the imagination rest, and, as it
were, places to lie down and stretch its limbs in ; kindly vacan-
cies, beguiling it back into action, with pleasant and cautious
sequence of incident ; all jarring thoughts being excluded, all
vain redundance denied, and all just and sweet transition per-
mitted.

And thus it is that, for the most part, imperfect sketches,
engravings, outlines, rude sculptures, and other forms of ab-
straction, possess a charm which the most finished picture
frequently wants. For not only does the finished picture
excite the imagination less, but, like nature itself, it tasces it
more None of it can be enjoyed till the imagination is brought

VOL. III.] OF THE USE OF PICTURES. 143

to bear upon it ; and tbe details of the completed picture are so
nnmerons, that it needs greater strength and willingness in the
beholder to follow them all out; the redundance, perhaps,
being not too great for the mind of a* careful observer, but too
great for a casual or careless observer. So that although the
perfection of art will always consist in the utmost acceptable
completion, jet, as every added idea will increase the difficulty
of apprehension, and every added touch advance the dangerous
realism which makes the imagination languid, the difference
between a noble and ignoble painter is in nothing more sharply
defined than in this, — that the first wishes to put into his work
as much truth as possible, and yet to keep it looking «»-real ;
the second wishes to get through his work lazily, with as little
truth as possibly, and yet to make it look real ; and, so far as
they add color to their abstract sketch, the first realizes for
the sake of the color, and the second colors for the sake of the
realization.*"

§ 19. And then, lastly, it is another infinite advantage pos-
sessed by the picture, that in these various differences from
reality it becomes the expression of the power and intelligence
of a companionable human soul. In all thb choice, arrange-
ment, penetrative sight, and kindly guidance, we recognize a
supernatural operation, and perceive, not merely the landscape
or incident as in a mirror, but, besides, the presence of what,
after all, may perhaps be the most wonderful piece of divine
work in the whole matter— the great human spirit through
which it is manifested to us. So that, although with respect to
many important scenes, it might, as we saw above, be one of
the most precious gifls that could be given us to see them with
our oton eyes, yet also in many things it is more desirable to be
permitted to see them with the eyes of others ; and although,
to the small, conceited, and affected painter displaying his nar-
row knowledge and tiny dexterities, our only word may be,
" Stand aside from between that nature and me," yet to the
great imaginative painter — ^greater a million times in every
faculty of soul thin we— our word may wisely be, " Come be-
tween this nature and me — this nature which is too great and

* Several other points connected with this subject have already been
noticed in the last chapter of the Stones of Venice, § 2^ Ac

144 or THE USE OF PICTURES. [PART IV.

too wonderful for me ; temper it for me, interpret it to me ; let
me see with your eyes, and hear with your ears, and have
help and strength from ypur great spirit."

All the noblest pictures have this character. They are true or
inspired ideals, seen in a moment to he ideal ; that is to say, the
result of all the highest powers of the imagination, engaged in the
discoveiy and apprehension of the purest truths, and having so
arranged them as best to show their preciousness and exalt their
clearness. They are always orderly, always one, ruled by one
great purpose throughout, in the fulfilment of which every atom
of the detail is called to help, and would be missed if removed ;
tliis peculiar oneness being the result, not of obedience to any
teachable law, but of the magnificence of tone in the perfect
mind, which accepts only what is good for its great purposes,
rejects whatever is foreign or redundant, and instinctively and
instantaneously ranges whatever it accepts, in sublime subordi-
nation and helpful brotherhood.

§ 20. Then, this being the greatest art, the lowest art is the
mimicry of it, — the subordination of nothing to nothing ; the
elaborate arrangement of sightlessness and emptiness; the
order which has no object ; the unity which has no life, and the
law which has no love ; the light which has nothing to illumine,
and shadow which has nothing to relieve.*

§ 21. And then, between these two, comes the wholesome,
happy, and noble — though not noblest — art of simple tran-
script from nature ; into which, so far as our modern Pre-
Eaphaelitism falls, it will indeed do sacred service in ridding us
of the old fallacies and componencies, but cannot itself rise
above the level of simple and happy usefulness. So far as it is
to be great, it must add, — and so far as it is great, has already
added, — the great imaginative element to all its faithfulness in

* " Though my pictures should have nothing else, they shall have Chia-
roscuro." — Constable (ill Leslie's Life of him). It is singular to reflect what
t!mt fatal Chiaroscuro has done in art, in the fall extent of its influence. It
has been not only shadow, but shadow of Death : passing over the face of
the ancient art, as death itself might over a fair human countenance;
whispering, as it reduced it to the white projections and lightless orbits
•f the skull, " Thy face shall have nothing else, but it shall have Chia-
roscuro "

TOL. UI.] OF THK USX OF FtCTUBXS. 140

tratiscTipt. And for this reason, I said in the dose of my
Edinburgli Lectares, that Pre-Raphaelitism, as long as it con-
fined itself to the simple copying of nature, could not take the
character of the highest class of art. But it has already,
almost unconsciously, supplied the defect, and taken that cha-
racter, in all its best results ; and, so far as it ought, hereafter,
it will assuredly do so, as soon as it is permitted to maintain
itself in any other position than tbat of stern antagonism to
the composition teachers around it. I say " so far as it ought,"
because, as already noticed in that same place, we have enough,
and to spare, of noble inventful pictures; so many have we,
tbat we let them moulder away on the walls and roofs of Italy
without one regretful thought about them. But of simple
transcripts from nature, till now we have had none ; even Van
Eyck and Albert Durer having been strongly filled with the
spirit of grotesque idealism ; so tbat the Pre-Haphaelites have,
to the letter, fulfilled Steele's description of the author, who
'' determined to write in an entirely new manner, and describe
things exactly as they took place."

§ 22. We have now, I believe, in some sort answeres most
of the qnestions which were suggested to us during our state-
ment of the nature of great art. I could recapitulate the
aniswers ; but perhaps the reader is already sufficiently wearied
of the recurrence of the terms " Ideal," " Nature,*' " Imagina-
tion," "Invention," and will hardly care to see them again
interchanged among each other, in the formalities of a summary.
What difficulties may yet occur to him will, I think, disappear
as he either re-reads the passages which suggested them, or
follows out the consideration of the subject for himself :-^— this
very simple, but very precious, conclusion being continually
remembered by him as the sum of all ; that greatness in art
(as assuredly in all other things, but more distinctly in this than
in most of them,) is not a teachable nor gainable thing, but
the expression of the mind of a God-made great man ; that
teach, or preach, or labor as you will, everlasting difference is
set between one man's capacity and another's ; and that this
God-given supremacy is the priceless thing, always just as
rare in the world at one time as another. What you can manu-
facture, or communicate, you can lower the price of, but thif

VOL. in. 7

146 OF THS rSE OF PICTURES. [PART IV.

meiital sapreniacj is incommnnicable ; you will never mnltiplj
its qaantity, nor lower its price ; and nearly the best thing that
men can generally do is to set themselves, not to the attain-
ment, but the discovery of this ; learning to know gold, when we
see it, from iron-glance, and diamonds from flint-sand, being for
most of us a more profitable employment than trying to make
diamonds out of our own charcoal. And for this God-made
supremacy, I generally have used, and shall continue to use, the
word Inspiration, not carelessly nor lightly, but in all logical
calmness and perfect reverence. We English have many false
ideas about reverence : we should be shocked, for instance, to
see a market-woman come into church with a basket of eggs
on her arm ; we think it more reverent to lock her out till
Sunday ; and to surround the church with respectability of iron
railings, and defend it with pacing inhabitation of beadles. I
believe this to be irreverence ; and that it is more truly reve-
rent, when the market-woman, hot and hurried, at six in tho
morning, her head much confused with calculations of the
probable price of eggs, can nevertheless get within church
porch, and church aisle, and church chancel, lay the basket
down on the very steps of the altar, and receive thereat so
much of help and hope as may serve her for the day's work.
In like manner we are solemnly, but I think not wisely,
shocked at any one who comes hurriedly into church, in any
figurative way, with his basket on his arm ; and perhaps, so
long as we feel it so, it is better to keep the basket out. But,
as for this one commodity of high mental supremacy, it cannot
be kept out, for the very fountain of it is in the church wall,
and there is no other right word for it but this of Inspiration ;
a word, indeed, often ridiculously perverted, and irreverently
used of fledgling poets and pompous orators — ^no one being
offended then, and yet cavilled at when quietly used of the
spirit that is in a truly great man ; cavilled at, chiefly, it seems
to me, because we expect to know inspiration by the look of it.
Let a man have shaggy hair, dark eyes, a rolling voice, plenty
of animal energy, and a facility of rhyming or sentencing, and
— ^improvisatore or sentimentalist — we call liim " inspired "
willingly enough ; but let him be a rough, quiet worker, not
proclaiming himself melodiously in any wise, but familiar with us,

YOU in.] 07 TBS rsx or pictijr«b. 147

unpretending, and letting all his littlenesses and feeblenesses be
seen, nnbindered, — wearing an ill-cnt coat withal, and, thongh
he be snch a man as is onlj sent upoii the earth once in
five hundred years, for some special human teaching, it is
irreverent to call him ** inspired." But, be it irreverent or not,
this word I must always use ; and the rest of what work I
have here before me, is simply to prove the truth of it, with
respect to the one among these mighty spirits whom we
have just lost ; who divided his hearers, as many an inspired
speaker has done before now, into two great sects — a large
and a narrow; these searching the Nature-scripture calmly,
** whether those things were so," and those standing haughtily
on their Mars hill, asking, *' what will this babbler say }"

148 OF TlOB irOVlElTT Of UOrMCAYS. |pAltT IV.

OHAPTEE XI.

OF THE NOVBLTT OF LANDSOAPX.

§ 1. Having now obtained, I trnst, clear ideas, np to a eer*
tain point, of what is generally rigbt and wrong in all art, both
in conception and in workmanship, we hfive to apply these
laws of right to the particular branch of art which is the subject
of our present inquiry, namely, landscape-painting. Respect-
ing which, after the various meditations into which we have
been led on the high duties and ideals of art, it may not
improbably occur to us first to ask, — ^whether it be worth
inquiring about at all.

That question, perhaps the reader thinks, should have been
asked and answered before I had written, or he read, two
volumes and a half about it. So I had answered it, in my own
mind ; but it seems time now to give the grounds for this answer.
If, fndeed, the reader has never suspected that landscape-painting
was anything but good, right, and healthy work, I should be
sorry to put any doubt of its being so into his mind ; but if, as
seems to me more likely, he, living in this busy and perhaps
somewhat calamitous age, h^s some suspicion that landscape-
painting is but an idle and empty business, not worth all our
long talk about it, then, perhaps, he will be pleased to have such
suspicion done away, before troubling himself farther with these
disquisitions.

§ 2. I should rather be glad, than otherwise, that he had
formed some suspicion on this matter. If he has at all admit-
ted the truth of anything hitherto said respecting great art, and
its choices of subject, it seems to me he ought, by this time, to
be questioning with himself whether road-side weeds, old cot-
tages, broken stones, and such other materials, be worthy mat-
ters for grave men to busy themselves in the imitation of.

TOL. m.] OF THB KOTELTT OF LANDSCAPE. 149

And I should like him to probe this doubt to the deep of it, and
bring all his misgivings oat to the broad light, that we maj see
how we are to deal with them, or ascertain if indeed they are
too well founded to be dealt with.

§ 3. And to this end I would ask him now to imagine himself
entering, for the first time in his life, the room of the Old
Water-Color Society ; and to suppose that he has entered it,
not for the sake of a quiet examination of the paintings one hj
one, but in order to seize such ideas as it maj generally suggest
respecting the state and meaning of modem as compared with
elder, art. I suppose him, of course, that he may be capable
of such a comparison, to be in some degree familiar with the
different forms in which art has developed itself within the
periods historically known to us ; but never, till that moment,
to have seen any completely modem work. So prepared, and
BO unprepared, he would, as his ideas began to arrange them-
selves, be first struck by the number of paintings representing
blue mountains, clear lakes, and ruined castles or cathedrals, and
he would say to himself : '' There is something strange in the
mind of these modem people ! Nobody ever cared about blue
mountains before, or tried to paint the broken stones of old
walls." And the more he considered the subject, the more he
wonld feel the peculiarity ; and, as he thought over the art of
Greeks and Romans, he would still repeat, with increasing cer-
tainty of convictioa : ** Mountains ! I remember none. The
Oreeks did not seem, as artists, to know that such things were
in the world. They carved, or variously represented, men, and
horses, and beasts, and birds, and all kinds of living creatures, —
yes, even dov/n to cuttle-fish ; and trees, in a sort of way ; bnt
not so much as the outline of a mountain ; and as for lakes,
th^ merely showed they knew the difference between salt and
fresh water by^he fish they put into each.'' Then he would
pass on to mediaeval art: and still he would be obliged to
repeat : ** Mountains f I remember none. Some careless and
jagged arrangements of blue spires or spikes on the horizon,
and, here and there, an attempt at representing an overhanging
rock with a hole through it ; but merely in order to divide the
light behind some human figure. Lakes ! No, nothing of the
kind,-*only blue bays of sea put in to fill up the background

160 or SHS VOVSLIT OV hATia>BCAeM* ^PMMt IV.

wben the painter could not think of anything else* Brok^i-
dowtt buildings ! No ; for the most part very eomplete and
well-appointed bnildings, if any ; and never bnildings at aU,
but to give place or explanation to some circumstance of human
conduct." And then he would look up again to the modem
pietures, observing, with an increasing astonishment* that here
the human interest had, in many cases, altogether disappeared.
That mountains, instead of being used only as a blue ground
for the relief of the heads of saints, were themselves the exdu-
rive subjects of reverent contemplation ; that their ravines^ and
peaks, and forests, were all painted with an appearance of as
much enthusiasm as had formerly been devoted to the dimple
of beauty, or the frowns of ascetieism ; and that all the living
interest which was still supposed necessary to the scene, might
be supplied by a traveller in a slouched hat, a beggar in a
scarlet cloak, or, in default of these, even by a heron or a wild
duck.

And if he could entirely divest himself of his own modem
habits of thought, and regard the subjects in question with the
feelings of a knight or monk of the middle ages, it might be
a question whether those feelings would not rapidly verge to-
wards contempt. " What !" he might perhaps mutter to him*
self, ** here are human beings spending the whole of their lives
in making pictures of bits of stone and ranlets of water, wither*
ed sticks and flyii^ frogs, and actually not a picture of the gods
or the heroes ! none of the saints or the martyrs ! none of the
angels and demons ! none of councils or battles, or any other
single thing worth the thought of a man ! Trees and clouds in-
deed ! as if I should not see as many trees as I cared to see,
and more, in the first half of my day's journey to-morrow, or as
if it mattered to any man whether the sky were clear or cloudy,
so long as his armor did not 'get too hot in the sun !"

§ 5. There can be no question that this would have been
somewhat the tone of thought with which either a Lacedemo-
nian, a soldier of Bome in her strength, or a knight of the thir-
teenth century, would have been apt to regard these particular
forms of our present art. Nor can there be any question that,
in many respects, their judgment would have been just. It is
true that the indignation of the Spartan or Boman would have

Tou m.] or TBI KOTXixr of xjlxdscapx. 151

been equally excited against anyaj^i^earance of laznrions indus-
try ; but the mediaeval knight would, to the full, have admitted
the nobleness of art ; onlj he would have had it employed in
decorating his church or his prayer-book, nor in imitating moors
and clouds. And the feelings of all the three would have agreed
in this, — that their main ground of offence must have been the
want of 8eriou9n€99 and purpose in what they saw. They would
all Jiave admitted the nobleness of whatever conduced to the
honor of the gods, or the power of the nation ; but they would
not have understood how the skill of human life could be wiselj
spent in that which did no honor either to Jupiter or to the
Virgin ; and which in no wise tended, apparently, either to the
aceumulation of wealth, the excitement of patriotism, or the
advancement of morality.

§ G. And exactly so far forth their judgment would be just,
as the landscape-painting could indeed be shown, for others as
well as for them, to be art of this nugatory kind ; and so far
Ibrth uDJust, as that painting could be shown to depend upon,
or cultivate, certain sensibilities which neither the Greek nor
medisBval knight possessed, and which have resulted from some
extraordinary change in human nature since their time. We
have no right to assume, without very accurate examination of
it, that this change has been an ennobling one. The simple
£act, that we are, in some strange way, different from all the
great races that have existed before us, cannot at once be re-
ceived as the proof of our own greatness ; nor can it be granted,
without any question, that we have a legitimate subject of com-
placency in being under the influence of feelings, with which
neither Miltiades nor the Black Prince, neither Homer nor
Dante, neither Socrates nor St. Francis, could for an instant
have sympathized.

§ 7. Whether, however, this fact be one to excite our pride or
not, it is assuredly one to excite our deepest interest. The fact
itself is certain. For nearly six thousand years the energies of
man have pursued certain beaten paths, manifesting some con-
stancy of feeling throughout all that period, and involving some
fellowship at heart, among the various nations who by turns suc-
ceeded or surpassed each other in the several aims of art or
policy. So that, for these thousands of years, the whole human

162 OF THK lYOVELTT 0¥ LANDSCAPE. [pART IV.

race might be to some extent described in general terms. Man
Was a creature separated from all others by his instinctive sense
of an Existence superior to his own, invariably manifesting this
sense of the being of a God more strongly in proportion to
bis own perfectness of mind and body ; and making enormous
and self-denying efforts, in order to obtain some persuasion of
the immediate presence or approval of the Divinity. So that,
on the whole, the best things he did were done as in the pre-
sence, or for the honor, of his gods ; and, whether in statues,
to help him to imagine them, or temples raised to their honor,
or acts of self-sacrifice done in the hope of their love, he brought
whatever was best and skilfuUest in him into their service, and
lived in a perpetual subjection to their unseen power. Also, he
was always anxious to know something definite about them ;
and his chief books, songs, and pictures were filled with legends
about them, or especially devoted to illustration of their lives .
and nature.

§ 8. Next to these gods he was always anxious to know
something about his human ancestors; fond of exalting the
memory, and telling or painting the history of old rulers and
benefactors ; yet full of an enthusiastic confidence in himself,
as having in many ways advanced beyond the best efforts of
past time ; and eager to record his own doings for futur^^ fame.
He was a creature eminently warlike, placing his principal
pride in dominion ; eminently beautiful, and having great de-
light in his own beauty : setting forth this beauty by every
species of invention in dress, and rendering his arms and accou-
trements superbly decorative of his form. He took, however,
very little interest in anything but what belonged to humanity ;
caring in no wise for the external world, except as it influenced
his own destiny ; honoring the lightning because it could
strike him, the sea because it could drown him, the fountains
because they gave him drink, and the grass because it yielded
him seed ; but utterly incapable of feeling any special happi-
ness in the love of such things, or any earnest emotion about
them, considered as separate from man; therefore giving no
time to the study of them ; — ^knowing little of herbs, except
only which were hurtful, and which healing ; of stones, only
which would glitter brightest in a crown, or last the longest in

TOL. III.] OF THB KOVSLIT OF LANDSCAPE. 153

a wall ; of the wild beasts, wMcli were best for food, and which
the stoutest quarrj for the hunter ; — thus spending onlj on the
lower creatures and inanimate things his waste energy, his dullest
thoughts, his most languid emotions, and reserving all his acuter
intellect for researclies into his own nature and that of tlie
gods ; all his strength of ^t^ill for the acquirement of political
or moral power ; all his sense of beauty for things immediately
connected with his own person and life ; and all his deep affee-
tions for domestic or divine companionship.

Such, in broad light and brief terms, was man for five thou-
sand years. Such he is no longer. Let us consider what he is
now, comparing the descriptions clause by clause.

§ 9. I. He Wiis invariably sensible of the existence of gods,
and went about all his speculations or works holding this as an
acknowledged fact, making his best efforts in their service.
Now he is capable of going through life with hardly any posi-
tive idea on this subject,—- doubting, fearing, suspecting, analyz-
ing, — doing everything, in fact, but believing; hardly ever
getting quite up to that point which hitherto was wont to be
the starting point for all generations. And human work has
accordingly hardly any reference to spiritual beings, but is
done either from a patriotic or personal interest, — either to be-*
nefit mankind, or reach some selfish end, not (I speak of human
work in the broad sense) to please the gods.

II. He v:as a beautiful creature, setting forth this beauty by
all means in his power, and depending upon it for much of his
authority over his fellows. So that the ruddy cheek of David»
and the ivory skin of Atrides, and the towering presence of
Saul, and the blue eyes of Coeur de Lion, were among the chief
reasons why they should be kings ; and it was one of the aims
of all education, and of all dress, to make the^ presence of the
human form stately and lovely. Now it has become the task
of grave philosophy partly to depreciate p^ concea^ this bodily
beauty ; and even by those who esteem it in their ^earts, it is
not made one of the great ends of education : man has become,
upon the whole, an ugly animal, and is not fshamed of his
ugliness.

III. Ho UHU eminently warlike. He is now gradually be-

7*

154 OF THE NOVKLTT OF LANDSCAPE. [pART IV.

coming more and more ashamed of all the arts and aims of
battle. So that tho desire of dominion, which was once frankly
confessed or boasted of as a heroic passion, is now stemlj
reprobated or cnnningly disclaimed.

IV. He used to take no interest in anything bnt what imme*
diately concerned himself. Now, he has deep interest in the
abstract natures of things, inquires as eagerly into the laws
which regulate the economy of the material world, as into
those of his own being, and manifests a passionate admiration
of inanimate objects, closely resembling, in its elevation and
tenderness, the affection which he bears to those living sonls
with which he is brought into the nearest fellowship.

§ 10. It is this last change only which is to be the subject
of our present inquiry j but it cannot be doubted that it is
closely connected with all the others, and that we can only
thoroughly understand its nature by considering it in this
connection. For, regarded by itself, we might, perhaps, too
rashly assume it to be a natural consequence of the progress
of the race. There appears to be a diminution of selfishness
in it, and a more extended and heartfelt desire of understand-
ing the manner of God's working ; and this the more, because
one of the permanent characters of this change is a greater
accuracy in the statement of external facts. When the eyes
of men were fixed first upon 'themselves, and upon nature
solely and secondarily as bearing upon their interests, it was of
less consequence to them what the ultimate laws of nature were,
than what their immediate effects were upon human beings.
Hence they could rest satisfied with phenomena instead of
principles, and accepted without scrutiny every fable which
seemed sufficiently or gracefully to account for those phe-
nomena. But so far as the eyes of men are now withdrawn
firom themselves, and turned upon the inanimate things about
them, the results cease to be of importance, and the laws
become essential.

§ 11. In these respects, it might easily appear to us that
this change was assuredly one of steady and natural advance.
But when we contemplate the others above noted, of which it
is clearly one of the branches or consequences, we may sus-

YOU in»] or THx NovKLTr or LAHDSCAIPIE. 166

pect ourselves of over-rashness in onr self-congratnlation, and
admit the necessity of a scrupulous analysis both of the feel-
ing itself and of its tendencies.

Of course a complete analysis, or anything like it» would in*
Yolve a treatise on the whole history of the world. I shall
merely endeavor to note some of the leading and more inte-
resting circumstances bearing on the subject, and to show
sufficient practical ground for the conclusion, that landscape
painting is indeed a noble and useful art, though one not long
known by man. I shall therefore examine, as best I can, the
effect of landscape, 1st, on the Classical mind ; 2ndly, on the
Medieval mind ; and lastly, on the Modem mind. But there is
one point of some interest respecting the effect of it on any
mind, which must be settled first, and this I will endeavor to
do in the next chapter*

I

IM ' ^ '^ QW TBM PATBBnO fJOJULCt. [PAU IT.

CHAPTEB XIL

OW THB PATHXnO FALLACY.

§ 1. Gbrman dolnesf and English affectation, liave of lat#
much multiplied among us the use o£ two of the most objection*
able words that were ever coined by the trouUesomeness of
metaphysicians, — ^namely, " Objective " and " Subjective."

No words can be more exquisitely, and in all points, useless ;
and I merely speak of them that I may, at once and for ever,
get them out of my way and out of my reader's. But to get
that done, they must be explained.

The word " Blue," say certain philosophers means the sensa-
tion of color which the human eye receives in looking at the
open sky, or at a bell gentian.

Now, say they farther, as this sensation can only be felt
when the eye is turned to the object, and as, therefore, no such
sensation is produced by the object when nobody looks at it,
therefore the thing, when it is not looked at, is not blue ; and
thus (say they) there are many qualities of things which depend
as much on something else as on themselves. To be sweet, a
thing must have a taster ; it is only sweet while it is being
tasted, and if the tongue had not the capacity of taste, then
the sugar would not have the quality of sweetness.

And then they agree that the qualities of things which thus
depend upon our perception of them, and upon our human
nature as affected by them, shall bo called Subjective ; and thd
qualities of things which they always have, irrespective of any
other nature, as roundness or squareness, shall be called Ob-
jective.

From these ingenious views the step is very easy to a farther
opinion, that it does not much matter what things are in them-
selves, but only what they are to us ; and that the only real

TOLi III.] or TBB PATHCRO TAIXACT. 15f

truth of them is their appoftiance to, or effect upoii^ us. From
which positioif, with a hearty de«re for m jstificatioD, and much
egotism, selishaess, shallowness, and impertinence, a philosopher
inay easily go so far as to believe, and say, that everything in
the world depends upon his seeing or thinking of it, and that
nothing, therefore, exists, but what he sees or thinks of.

§ 2. Now, to get rid of all these ambiguities and troublesome
words at once, be it observed that the word ** Blue " does noi
mean the sensation caused by a gentian on the human eye ; but
it means the power of producing that sensation ; and this power
is always there, in the thing, whether we are there to experience
it or not, and would remain there though there were not left
a man on the face of the earth. Precisely in the same way
gunpowder has a power of exploding. It will not explode if
you put no match to it. But it has always the power of so
exploding, and is therefore called an explosive compound,
which it very positively and assuredly is, whatever philosophy
may say to the contrary.

In like manner, a gentian does not produce the sensation of
blaeness if you don't look at it. But it has always the power
of doing so ; its particles being everlastingly so arranged by
its Maker. And, therefore, the gentian and the sky are always
verily blue, whatever philosophy may say to the contrary ; and
if jou do not see them blue when you look at them, it is not
their fault but yours.*

§ 3. Hence I would say to these philosophers : If, instead
of using the sonorous phrase, " It is objectively so," you will
use the plain old phrase, *' It is so ;" and if instead of the
son<Mrons phrase, ** It is subjectively so," yon will say, in plain
old English, " It does so," or " It iieems so to me ;" you will, on

* It 18 quit« true, thftt in all qualities invoWing sensation, there vomj be
ft doubt whether different people receive the same sensation from the same
thing (compare Part IL See. I. Chap Y. § S.); but, though this makes such
facts aot distinetly explicable, it does not alter the &eto themselves. I
deriTe a certain sensation, which I call sweetness, from sugar. That is
a fact Another person feels a sensation, which he also caUs sweetness,
from sugar. That is also a £Mt The sugar's power to produce these two
sensations, which we suppose to be, and which are, in all probability, very
neariy the same in both of us, and, on the whole^ in the human nice, is ifei

158 or IBM PAnsno faliact. [paUt iv.

the whole, he more hrteUigible to yonr fellow-creatiireB : and
besides, if jou find that a thing which generallj ** does so " to
other people (as a gentian looks blue to most men) does not
so to jon, on anj particular occasion, you will not fall into the
impertinence of saying that the thing is not so, or did not so,
but 70U will say simply (what yon will be all the better for
speedily finding ont) that something is the matter with you. If
you find that you cannot explode the gunpowder, yon will not
declare that all gunpowder is subjectiye, and all explosion ima-
ginary, but you will «imply suspect and declare yourself to be
an ill-made match. Which, on the whole, though there may
be a distant chance of a mistake about it, is, nevertheless, the
wisest conclusion you can come to until farther experiment.*

§ 4. Now, therefore, putting these tiresome and absurd words
quite out of our way, we may go on at our ease to examine
the point in question, — ^namely, the difference between the
ordinary, proper, and true appearances of things to us ; and
the extraordinary, or false appearances, when we are under the
influence of emotion, or contemplative fancy ;t false appear-
ances, I say, as being entirely unconnected with any real

* In faet (for I may as well, for once, meet onr German friends in their
owH style), all that has been sobjeeted t& us on this subject seems objeet to
this great objection ; that the subjection of all things (subject to no excep-
tions) to senses which are, in us, both subject and abject, and objects of
perpetual contempt, cannot but make it our ultimate object to subject our-
selves to the senses, and to remove whatever objections existed to such
subjection. So that, finally, that which is the subject of examination or
object of attention, uniting thus in itself the characters of subness and
obness (so that, that which has no obness in It should be ealled sub-subjee-
tive, or a sub-subject, and that which has no subness in it should be called
upper or ober-objective, or an ob-object) ; and we also, who suppose our-
selves the objects of every arrangement, and are certainly the su1]jects of
every sensual impression, thus uniting in ourselves, in an obverse or ad-
verse manner, the characters of obness and subness, must both become
metaphyBieaily dejected or rejected, nothing remaining in tu objective, but
subjectivity, and the very objectivity <^ the object being lost in the abyss
ot this sobjeotiyity of the Human

There is, however, some meaning in the above sentence, if the reader
eares to make it out ; but in a pure German sentence of the highest style
there is often none whatever. See Appendix n. *' German Philosophy."

f Contemplative, in the sense explained in Part IIL Sec IL Chap IV.

VOL. m.] 07 THB PAtBSnO VAXXAOT. 159

power or eharaeter in the objeet* and only imputed to H bj
ns.

For instance —

" The spendthrift crocus, bursting through the mould
Kaked and shivering, with his cup of gold."*

This IS very beantifal and yet very untrue. The crocus is
not a spendthrift, but a hardy plant ; its yellow is not gold, but
saffron. How is it that we enjoy so much the having it put
into our heads that it is anything else than a plain crocus 1

It is an important question. For, throughout our past
reasonings about art, we have always found that nothing conld
be good or useful, or ultimately pleasurable, which was untrue.
But here is something pleasurable in written poetry which is
nevertheless untme. And what is more, if we think over our
favorite poetry, we shall find it full of this kind of fallacy, and
that we like it all the more for being so.

§ 5. It will appear also, on consideration of the matter, that
this fallacy is of two principal kinds. Either, as in this case
of the crocus, it is the fallacy of wilful fancy, which involves
no real expectation that it will be believed ; or else it is a fal-
lacy caused by an excited state of the feelings, making us, for
the time, more or less irrational. Of the cheating of the fancy
we shall have to speak presently ; but, in this chapter, I want
to examine the nature of the other error, that which the mind
admits, when affected strongly by emotion. Thus, for instance,
in Alton Locke. —

''They rowed her in aerose llie rdiing foam^—
Hie emel, crawling foam.**

The foam is not cruel, neither does it crawl. The state of
mind which attributes to it these characters of a living creature
is one in which the reason is unhinged by grief. All violent
feelings have the same effect. They produce in us a falseness
in all our impressions of external things, which I would
generally characterize as the ''Pathetic fallacy."

* Hofanet (Oliver Wendell), quoted by Mias Mitford ia her BeeoAeotioDB
of a literary life^

IM or TBS PATBCnO PALLACT. [fABT IT*

§ 6. Now we are in the habit of connderii^ tlus iailftcj as
eminently a character of poetical description, and the temper
of mind in which we allow it, as one eminently poetical, be-
canse passionate. But, I believe, if we look well into the
matter, that we shall find the greatest poets do not often admit
this kind of falseness, — ^tliat it is only the second order of
poets who much delight in it.*

Thus, when Dante describes the spirits falling from the bank
of Acheron '* as dead leaves flatter from a bough," he gives
the most perfect image possible of their utter lightness, feeble*
ness, passiveness, and scattering agony of despair, without,
however, for an instant losing his own clear perception that
these are souls, and those are leaves : he makes no confusion
of oue with the other. But when Coleridge speaks of

* The one red leaf, the laat of its clan,
That daaee» as oltea as dance it can,"

* I admit two orders of poets, bat no third ; and by these two orders I
mean the Creative (Shakspere, Homer, Daate), and Reflective or Perceptive
(Wordsworth, Keats, Tennyson). Bnt both of those must be firtt-n,te in
their range, though their range is different ; and with poetry seoondnrate
in quality no one ought to be allowed to tranble mankind There is quite
enough of the best,^-mueh more than we can ever read or enjoy in the
length of a life; and it is a literal wrong or sin in any person to encumber
us with inferior work. I have no patience with apologies made by young
pseudo-poets, " that they believe there is tome good in what they have
written : tluit they hope to do better in time,** ^c 8<nne good I If there
is not nil good, there is no good. If they ever hope to do better, why da
they troable us now ! Let them rather courageously burn all they have
done, and wait for the better daysw There are few men, ordinarily
educated, who in moments of strong feeling could not strike out a poetic^
thought, and afteiw^rds polish it so as to be presentable. But men <^
sense know better t lian so to waste their time ; and those who sincerely
love poetry, know the touch of the masters hand on the chords too well
to fumble among them after him. Nay, more than this; all inferior poetry
is an iigury to the good, inasmuch as it takes away the freshness of rhymes^
blunders upon and gives a wretched commonalty to good thoughts ; and,
in general, adds to the weight of human weariness in a most woAil and
culpable manner. There are few thoughts likely to come across onlinary
men, which have not already been expressed by greater men in the best
possible way; and it is a wiser, more generous, more noble thing to
remember and pmnt out the perfect words, than to invent poorer ones,
wherewith to encumber temporarily the world.

TOL. m.] 07 raM VAttarto vxhkAor* 161

he lias a morbid, thi^ is to say, a so far false, idea* about the
leaf: be fancies a life in it, and will, vbicb tbere are not;
confuses its powerlessness with choice, its fading death with
merriment, and the wind that shakes it with mnsic. Here,
however, there is some beaaty, even in the morbid passage $
but take an instance in Homer and Pope. Withoat the

• knowledge of Ulysses, Elpenor, his youngest follower, has
fallen from an npper chamber in the Gircean palace, and has
been left dead, nnmissed by his leader, or companions, in the
haste of their departure. They cross the sea to the Gimme«
nan land; apd Ulysses summons the shades from Tartarus*
The first which appears is that of the lost Elpenor. Ulysses,
amazed, and in exactly the spirit of bitter and terrified light-

'ness which is seen in Hamlet,* addresses the spirit with the
simple, startled words : —

^ Elpenor t How earnest thou under the Shadowy darkneist Hast
thou come faster on foot than J in my black Bhip!"

Which Pope renders thus : —

** 0, say, what angry power Elpenor led
to glide in shades, and wander with the dead? ,

How could thy soul, by realms and seas disjoined,
Ontfly the nimble sail, and leave the lagging wind f

I sincerely hope the reader finds no pleasure here, either in
the nimbleness of the sail, or the laziness of the wind ! And
yet how is it that these conceits are so painful now, when they
have been pleasant to us in the other instances I

§ 7. For a very simple reason. They are not a p€Uketic
fallacy at all, for they are put into the month of the wrong
passion— a passion which never could possibly have spoken
them — agonized curiosity. Ulysses wants to know the facts
of the matter ; and the very last thing his mind could do at
the moment would be to pause, or suggest in any wise what
was not a fact. The delay in the first three lines, and conceit
in the last, jar upon us instantly, like the most frightful discord

* Well said. Old molel can'st work i' the ground to fast!**

162 cur TBS TAnamc vaixaot. [pabt i%

in mmnc *No poet of trne unaipnativo power eoiild porably
have written the passage.*

Therefore, we see that the spirit of truth must guide ns in
some sort, even in our enjoyment of fallaey. Coleridge's fal-
laey has no cliseord in it, but Pope's has set our teeth on edge.
Without farther questioning, I will endeavor to state the main
bearings of this matter.

§ 8. The temperament which admits the pathetie fallacy, is,
as I said above, that of a mind and body in some sort too^ weak
to deal fully with what is before them or upon them ; borne
away, or over*clouded, or over-dazzled by emotion ; and it is a
more or less noble state, according to the force of the emotioB
which has induced it. For it is no credit to a man that he is
not morbid or inaccurate in his perceptions, when he has no%
strength of feeling to warp them ; and it is in general a sign of
higher capacity and stand in the ranks of being, that the emo-
tions should be strong enough to vanquish, partly, the intellect,
and make it believe what they choose. But it is still a grander
condition when the intellect also rises, till it is strong enough
to assert its rule against, or together with, the utmost effi>rts of
the passions ; and the whole man stands in an iron glow, white
hot, perhaps, but still strong, and in no wise evaporating ; even
if h% melts, losing none of his weight.

80, then, we have the three ranks : the man who perceives
lightly, because he does not feel, and to whom the primrose is
very accurately the primrose, because he does not love it.
Then, secondly, the man who perceives wrongly, because he
feels, and to whom the primrose is anything else than a prim*
rose : a star, or a sun, or a fairy's shield, or a forsaken maiden.

* It is worth whfle comparing the way a similar question is put by ih€
•squidte sincerity of Keats: —

** He wept^ and his bright tears
Went trickling down the golden bow he held.
Thus, with half-shut, suffused eyes, he stood ;
While from beneath some cumb'rons boughs hard by.
With solemn step, an awful goddess came.
And there was purport in her looks for him,
Which he with eager guess began to read :
Perplexed the while, melodiously he said,
* JTois cam^ti tkcu wer the un/ooted sea /"*

T0UXEU| OV TBM VXTUKTW WXUACt* 16S

And tlieiiy ]«8tlj» there is tbe Bita who. perceives rightly in
spite of his feelings, and to whom the primrose is for ever no-
thing else than itself — a little flower, apprehended in the very
plain and leafy fact of it, whatever and how many soever the
associations and passions may be, that crowd aronnd it. And,
in general, these three classes may be rated in comparative
order, as the men who are not poets at all, and the poets of
the second order, and the poets of the first ; only however great
a man may be, there are always some subjects which aughl to
throw him off his balance ; some, by which his poor human
capacity of thought should be conquered, and brought into the
inaccurate and vague state of perception, so that the language
of the highest inspiration becomes broken, obscure, and wild in
metaphor, resembling that of the weaker man, overborne by
weaker things.

§ 9. And thus, in full, there a^e four classes: the men who
feel nothing, and therefore see truly ; the men who feel strongly,
think weakly, and see untruly (second order of poets) ; the
men who fe^ strongly, think strongly, and see truly (first order
of poets) ; and the men who, strong as human creatures can be,
are yet submitted to influences stronger than they, and see in
a sort untruly, because what they see is inconceivably above
them. This last is the usual condition of prophetic inspiration.

§ 10. I separate these classes, in order that their character
may be clearly understood ; but of course they are united each
to the other by imperceptible transitions, and the same mind,
according to the influences to which it is subjected, passes at
different times into the various states. Still, the difference be*
tween the great and less man is, on the whole, chiefly in this
point of alterahility. That is to say, the one knows too much,
and perceives and feels too much of the past and future, and of
all things beside and around that which immediately affects
him, to be in any wise shaken by it His mind is made up ;
his thoughts have an accustomed current ; his ways are sted-
fast ; it is not this or that new sight which will at once unba-
lance him. He is tender to impression at the surface, like a
rock with deep moss upon it ; but there is too much mass of
him to be moved. The smaller man, with the same degree of
sensibility, is at once carried off his feet ; he wants to do some-

164 09 na patebtic fallacy. [faet iv.

Aing he did not want to do bofofe ; he views all the unirerse in
a new light through his tears ; he is gay or enthasiastic, melan-
eholy or pasuonate, as things come and go to him. Therefore the
high creative poet might even he thought, to a great extent,
impassive (as shallow people think Dante stern), receiving in-
deed all feelings to the full, hut having a great centre of reflec-
tion and knowledge in which he stands serene, and watches the
feeling, as it were, from far off.

Dante, in his most intense moods, has entire command of
himself, and can look around calmlj, at all moments, for the
image or the word that will hest tell what he sees to the upper
or lower world. But Keats and Tennyson, and the poets of
the second order, are generally themselves subdned by the
feelings under which they write, or, at least, write as choosing
to be so, and therefore admit certain expressions and modes of
thought which are in some sort diseased or false.

§ 11. Now so long as we see that the feding is true, we,
pardon, or are even pleased by, the confessed fallacy of sight
which it induces : we are pleased, for instance, with those lines
of Kingsley's, above quoted, not because they fallaciously
describe foam, but because they faithfully describe sorrow.
But the moment the mind of the speaker becomes, cold, that
moment every such expression becomes untrue, as being for
ever untrue in the external facts. And there is no greater
baseness in literature than the habit of using these metaphorical
expressions in cool blood. An inspired writer, in full impetu-
osity of passion, may speak wisely and truly of *' raging waves
of the sea, foaming out their own shame ;" but it is only the
basest writer who cannot speak of the sea without talking of
*• raging waves," ** remorseless floods," " ravenous billows,"
&:c. ; and it is one of the signs of the highest power in a writer
to check all such habits of thought, and to keep his eyes fixed
firmly on the 'purt facU out of which if any feeling comes to
him or his reader, he knows it must be a true one.

To keep to the waves, I forget who it is who represents a
man in despair, desiring that his body may be cast into
the sea,

* Whose cluinging mounds and foam that pasted away.
Might mock th« eye that questioned where I lay."

▼OL. StX.] OV IBS FATBSnO FAUiAOr. IM

Observe, there L^ not a single falto, or erea overebarged,
expression. *' Mound'' of the sea wave is perfectly simple and
true ; '' changing " is as familiar as may be ; '* foam that passed
away," strictly literal ; and the whole line descriptive of the
reality with a degree of accuracy which I know not any other
verse, in the range of poetry, that altogether equals. For most
people have not a distinct idea of the clumsiness and massive*
ness of a large wave. The word " wave " is used too generally
of ripples and breakers, and bondings in light drapery or grass :
it does not by itself convey a perfect image. But the word
" mound " is heavy, large, dark, definite ; there is no mistaking
the kind of wave meant, nor missing the sight of it. Then the
term ** changing " has a peculiar force also. Most people think
of waves as rising and falling. But if they look at the sea
carefully, they will perceive that the waves do not rise and
fall. They change. Change both place and form, but they
do not fall ; one wave goes on, and on, and still on ; now
lower, now higher, now tossing its mane like a horse, now
building itself together like a wall, now shaking, now steady,
but still the same wave, till at last it seems struck by some-
thing, and changes, one knows not how, — ^becomes another
wave.

The close of the line insists on this image, and paints it still
more perfectly, — " foam that passed away." Not merely melt-
ing, disappearing, but passing on, out of sight, on the career
of the wave. Then, having put the absolute ocean fact as far
as he may before our eyes, the poet leaves us to feel about it
as we may, and to trace for ourselves the opposite fact, — ^the
image of the green mounds that do not change, and the white
and written stones that do not pass away ; and thence to follow
out also the associated images of the calm life with the quiet
grave, and the despairing life with the fading foam : —

** Let no man move his bonea.**
" As for Samana, her king is cut off like the foam upon the water."

But nothing of this is actually told or pointed out, and the
expressions, as they stand, are perfectly severe and accurate,
utterlv uninfluenced by the flrmly governed emotion of the

166 or TBM PATBnmc rALLAcr. [fam nr.

writer. Eren tbe word ''mock ** is liardlj an excepti<m, as it
majr stand merely for " deceive " or " defeat/' withont imply-
ing anj impersonation of the waves.

§ 12. It may be well, perhaps, to give one or two more
instances to show the pecnliar dignity possessed by all passages
which thus limit their expression to the pnre fact, and leave
the hearer to gather what he can from it. Here is a notable
one from the Iliad. Helen, looking from the Scaean gate of
Troy over the Grecian host, and telling Priam tbe names of
its captains, says at last : —

*" I see all the other dark-eyed Greeks ; but two I cannot see, — Castor
and PollusE, — whom one mother bore with me. Have they not followed
from fair Lacedsemoo, or have they indeed come in their sea-wandering
ships, but now will not enter into the battle of men, fearing the shame and
the scorn that is in me f

Then Homer : —

"So she spoke. Bnt them, already, the life-giving earth poflsessed, there
in Laoedomon, in the dear fatherland."

Note, here, the high poetical truth carried to the extreme.
The poet has to speak of the earth in sadness, but he will not
let that sadness affect or change his thoughts of it. No ; though
Castor and Pollux be dead, yet the earth is our mother still,
fruitful, life-giving. These are the facts of the thing. I see
nothing else than these. Make what you will of them, j^

§ 13. Take another very notable instance from Gasimir de^*
Vigne's terrible ballad, " La Toilette de Oonstance." I must
quote a few lines out of it here and there, to enable the reader
who has not the book by him, to understand its close.

** Vite, Anna, vite ; an miroir

Pins vite, Anna. Llieare s'avanee,
Et je vais au bal ee soir
Chez Tambassadenr de Franee.

Y pensez vona, ils sont fan^ ees ncDuda,
lis sont dliier, mon Dien, comme tout paase!

Que du r^eau qui retient mes cheveux
Les glands d*aziir retombent avec gr&ce.

TOL. ni.] OW THE PATHKTIO VALLACT. l^f

Plui luratl Flos baa I Ycms ne c o mprmei rien I

Que sar mon front c« saphir ^tiaceUe :
VoQs me piqaez, mal-adroite. Ah, c'est bUn,

Bien,— ch^re Anna ! Je t*aim«, Je sois belle.

Celoi qa*en Tun je Toudrais oublier

(Anna, nm robe) il y sera, fesp^re.
(Ah, fi, profane, est-oo U mon collier f-

Qaoi I ees grains d'or b^.nits par lo Saint P^ I)
n y sera ; Dieu, B*il preaaait ma main

Kn y pensant, a peine je respire :
P^re Anselmo doit m'eiitendre demoio,

Comment ferai-je, Anna, pour tout loi dire?

Vite nn conp d'ceil an miroir.

Le dernier. J'ai Vassiiranee

Qu'on TO m*adorer ee soir

Chez rombassadeur de France.

Pr^ dn foyer, Constance s'admirait

Dien ! sur sa robe il vole une ^tincelle t
Au feu. Courez ; Quand Fespoir reDivroit

Tout perdre ainsi ! Qa<H 1 Mourir,--et si beUe *
L*horrible fen rouge avee Tolnptd

Sea brosy son sein, et Tentoure, et t^&iby%
£t sons pitie d6vore sa beaute,

Ses dizhuit ans, h^las, et son douz rftre I

Adien, bal, plaisir, amour !

On disoit, Panrre Conttoneel
£t on dansoitk jusqn'au jour,

Chez Tambassadeur de France.**

Tes» tbat is the fact of it. Bight or wrong, the poet does not
say. What you may think about it» he does not know. He
has nothing to do with that. There lie the ashes of the dead
girl in her chamber. There they danced, till the morning, at
the Ambassador's of France. Make what you will of it.

If the reader will look through the ballad, of which I have
quoted only about the third part, he will find that there is not,
from beginning to end of it, a single poetical (so called) expres-
sion, except in one stanza. The girl speaks as simple prose as
may be ; there is not a word she would not have actually used as
she was dressing. The poet stands by, impassive as a statue.

IM or TBI PATHinO WAILACT. [VABT !▼•

recording her words just as they come. At last the doom seizes
her, and in the verj presence of death, for an instant, his own
emotions conquer him. He records no longer the facts onlj, but
the facts as they seem to him. The fire gnaws with voluptuous-
nes — without pity. It is soon past. The fate is fixed for ever ;
and he retires into his pale and crystalline atmosphere of truth.
He closes all with the calm veracity,

<'Th«y«ud, * Poor Constance r**

§ 14. Now in this there is the exact type of the consummate
poetical temperament. For, he it clearly and constantly re-
membered, that the greatness of a poet depends upon the two
faculties, acuteness of feeling, and command of it. A poet is
great, first in proportion to the strength of his passion, and then,
that strength being granted, in proportion to his government of
it ; there being, however, always a point beyond which it would
be inhuman and monstrous if he pushed this government, and,
therefore, a point at which all feverish and wild fancy becomes
just and true. Thus the destruction of the kingdom of Assyria
cannot be contemplated firmly by a prophet of Israel. The fact
is too great, too wonderful. It overthrows him, dashes him into
a confused element of dreams. All the world is, to his stunned
thought, full of strange voices. " Yea, the fir-trees rejoice at
thee, and the cedars of Lebanon, saying, ' Since thou art gone
down to the grave, no feller is come up against us.' " So,
still more, the thought of the presence of Deity cannot be borne
without this great astonishment. " The mountains and the hills
shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of
the fields shall clap their hands."

§ 15. But by how much this feeling is noble when it is justi-
fied by the strength of its cause, by so much it is ignoble when
there is not cause enough for it ; and beyond all other ignoble-
ness is the mere affectation of it, in hardness of heart. Simply
bad writing may almost always, as above noticed, be known by
its adoption of these fanciful metaphorical expressions, as a sort
of current coin ; yet there is even a worse, at least a more
harmful, condition of writing than this, in which such expres-
sions are not ignorantly and feelinglessly caught up, but, by son^e

VOL. III.] OF THE PATHETIC FALLACY. 169

master, skilful in handling, yet insincere, deliberately wrought
out with chill and studied fancy ; as if we should try to make
an old lava stream look red-hot again, by covering it with dead
leaves, or white-hot, with hoar-frost.

When Young is lost in veneration, as he dwells on the cha-
racter of a truly good and holy man, he permits himself for a
moment to be overborne by the feeling so far as to exclaim —

"Where shall I find him f angelfl, tell me where.
Ton know him ; he is near yon ; point him oat
Shall I see glories beaming from his brow,
Or trace his footsteps by the rising flowers f

This emotion has a worthy cause, and is thus true and right.
But now hear the cold-hearted Pope say to a shepherd girl —

"Where'er yon walk, cool gales shall fan the glade t
Trees, where yon sit, shall crowd into a shade ;
Tour praise the birds shall chant in every grove, |

And winds shall waft it to the powers above. I

But would yon sing, and rival Orphens* strain.
The wondering forests soon should dance again ;
Hie moving mountains hear the powerful call,
And headlong streams hang, listening, in their falL*'

This is not, nor could it for a moment be mistaken for, the
language of passion. It is simple falsehood, uttered by hypo-
crisy ; definite absurdity, rooted in affectation, and coldly as-
serted in the teeth of nature and fact. Passion will indeed go
far in deceiving itself ; but it must be a strong passion, not the
simple wish of a lover to tempt his mistress to sing. Compare
a very closely parallel passage in. Wordsworth, in which the
lover has lost his mistress :

** Three years had Barbara in her grave been laid.
When thus his moan he made : —

' Oh, move, thoa cottage, from behind yon oal^

Or let the ancient tree uprooted lie.
That in some other way yon smoke
May mount into the sky.
VOL. III. 8

no OF THK FATHXTIO FAIXACY* [PART IV.

If itill behind yon pino-tree*B ragged bough.

Headlong, the wnterfall must come.

Oh, let it, then, be dumb —
Be anything, sweet stream, bat that which tboa art now.' *

Here is a cottage to be moved, if not a monntain, and a water-
fall to be silent, if it is not to hang listening ; but with what
different relation to the mind that contemplates them ! Here,
in the extremity of its agony, the soul cries out wildly for relief,
which at the same moment it partly knows to be impossible,
but partly believes possible, in a vague impression that a miracle
might be wrought to give relief even to a less sore distress, —
that nature is kind, and God is kind, and that grief is strong ;
it knows not well what U possible to such grief. To silence a
stream, to move a cottage wall>— one might think k could do as
much as that !

§ 16. I believe these instances are enough to illustrate the
main point I insist upon respecting the pathetic fallacy, — that
so far as it is a fallacy, it is always the sign of a morbid state
of mind, and comparatively of a weak one. Even in the most
inspired prophet it is a sign of the incapacity of his human
sight or thought to hear what has been revealed to it. In
ordinary poetry, if it is found in the thoughts of th« poet him-
self, it is at once a sign of his belonging to the inferior school ;
if in the thoughts of the characters imagined by him, it is right
or wrong according to the genuineness of the emotion from
which it springs ; always, however, implying necessarily some
degree of weakness in the character.

Take two most exquisite instances from master hands. The
Jessy of Shenstone, and the Ellen of Wordsworth, have both
been betrayed and deserted. Jessy, in the course of her most
touching complaint, says :

** If through the garden's flowery tribes I stray.

Where bloom the jasmines that could once allure,
' Hope not to find delight in ns,* they say,

* For we are spotless, Jessy ; we are p«r^'"

Compare with thjis some of the words of Ellen :

" * Ah, why,' said Ellen, sighing to herself,

* Why do not words, and kiss, and solemn pledge.

YOU lU.] OF TBB PATOSTIO 7ALLA0T. Ill

And nature, that is kind in woman's breast^

And reason, that in man is wise and good.

And fear of Him who is a righteous Jndge,—

Why do not these prevail for human life,

To keep two hearts together, that began

Their springtime with one love, and that hare need

Of mutual pity and forgireness, sweet

To grant, or be receiyed ; while that poor bird—

O, eome and hear him 1 Thou who hast to me

Been faithless, hear him ; — ^though a lowly oreatore^

One of Ood's simple children, that yet know not

The Universal Parent, Mow ho sbgsl

As if he wished the firmament of hearen

Should listen, and give baek to him the ydee

Of his tnamphaat constancy and 1ot&

The proelamation that he makes, how fkr

His darknesa doth transcend our fickle tight' *

The perfection of both these passages, as far as regards truth
and tenderness of imagination in the two poets, is quite insu-
perable. But, of the two characters imagined, Jessy is weaker
than Ellen, exactly in so far as something appears to her to be
in nature which is not. The flowers do not really reproach her.
Ood meant them to comfort her, not to taunt her ; thej would
do so if she saw them rightly.

Ellen, on the other hand, is quite above the slightest erring
emotion. There is not the barest film of fallacy in all her
thoughts. She reasons as calmly as if she did not feel. And,
although the singing of the bird suggests to her the idea of
its desiring to be heard in heaven, she does not for an instant
admit any veracity in the thought. " As if," she says,—*' I
know he means nothing of the kind ; but it does verily seem
as if." The reader will find, by examining the rest of the
poem, that Ellen's character is throughout consistent in this
clear though passionate strength.

It then being, I hope, now made clear to the reader in all
respects that the pathetic fallacy is powerful only so far as it
is pathetic, feeble so far as it is fallacious, and, therefore, that
the dominion of Truth is entire, over this, as over every other
natural and just state of the human mind, we may go on to
the subject for the dealing with which this prefatory inquiry

179 or THK FATHSTZO rALLACT. [PABT IT

became necessary; and why necessary, we shall see forth-
with*

* I CAimot quit this snlject witlumt girbg two more instances, both
esquisite, of the p«thetio iiillaey, whioh I have just come upon, in Biaade :

'* For a great specnlation had faiTd ;
And erer he mattered and madden'd, and ever wann'd with despair ;
And ont he walk'd, when the wind like a broken worldling wail'd,
And ibejiying gM of the ruifCd woodlands drove thro* the airj*

"There has fiiUen a splendid tear
From the passion-flower at the gate.
The red roee ertes, *8he it near, the it near f

And the white rote wept, * She it laie.'
The larktpur littene, ' I hear, I hear f
And the lily whitpen, 'IwaiL""

VOL. m.] OV CLASSICAL LA9D6CAPB* iVS

CHAPTER XIII.

OF CLASSICAL LANDSCAPE.

§ 1. My reason for asking the reader to give so mnch of his
time to the examination of the pathetic fallacy was, that,
whether in literature or in art, he will find it eminently charac-
teristic of the modem mind ; and in the landscape, whether of
literature or art, he will also find the modem painter endeavor-
ing to express something which he, as a living creature,
imi^nes in the lifeless ohject, while the classical and mediaeval
painters were content with expressing the unimaginarj and
actual qualities of the object itself. It will be observed that,
according to the principle stated long ago, I use the words
painter and poet quite indifferently, including in our inquiry
the landscape of literature, as well as that of painting ; and
this the more because the spirit of classical landscape has hardly
been expressed in any other way than by words.

§ 2. Taking, therefore, this wide field, it is surely a very
notable circumstance, to begin with, that this pathetic fallacy
is eminently characteristic of modem painting. For instance,
Keats, describing a wave, breaking, out at sea, says of it —

*< Down whose green back the Bhort-liyed foam, all hoar,
Bursts gradual, with a wayward indolence.**

That is quite perfect, as an example of the modem manner.
The idea of the peculiar action with which foam rolls down a
long, large wave could not have been given by any other
wor-ds so well as by this " wayward indolence." But Homer
would nether have written, never thought of, such words. He
could not by any possibility have lost sight of the great fact
that the wave, from the beginning to the end of it, do what it

174 OT cnuLMiCAL ulnmoapi. |part it.

might, was still nothing else than salt water ; and that salt
water could not be either wayward or indolent. He will call
the waves " over-roofed," " full-charged," " monstrous," '* com-
pact-black," " dark-clear," " violet-colored," " wine-colored,"
and so on. But every one of these epithets is descriptive of
pure physical nature. ** Over-roofed" is the term he invariably
uses of any thingr-rock> bouae, or ware^that nods over at the
brow ; the other terms need no explanation ; they are as accu-
rate and intense in truth as words can be, but they never show
the slightest feeling of anythuig animated in the ocean. Black
or clear, monstrous or violet-colored, cold salt water il is always,
and nothing but that.

§ 3. *' Well, but the modem writer, by his admission of the
tinge of fallacy, has given an idea of something in the action
of the wave which Homer could not« and surely, therefore, has
made a step in advance Y Also there appears to be a degree of
sympathy and feeling in the one writer, which there is not in the
other; and as it has been received for a first principle that
writers are great in proportion to the intensity of their feelings,
and Homer se^ns to have no fe^ngs about the sea but that it
is black and deep, surely in this respect also the modem writer
is the greater V

Stay a moment. Homer had some feeling about the sea ; a
faith in the animation of it much sponger than Keats's. But
all this sense of something living in it, he separates in his mind
into a great abstract image of a Sea Power. He never says the
waves rage, or the waves are idle. But he says there is some-
what in, and greater than, the waves, which rages, and is idle,
and that he calls a god.

§ 4. I do not think we ever enough endeavor to enter into
what a Greek's real notion of a god was. We are so accustomed
to the modern mockeries of the classical religion, so accustomed
to hear and see the Greek gods introduced as living personages,
or invoked for help, by men who believe neither in them nor
in any other gods, that we seem to have infected the Greek
ages themselves with the breath, and dimmed them with the
shade, of our hypocrisy ; and are apt to think that^Homer, as
we know that Pope, was merely an ingenious fabulist ; nay,
more than this, that all the nations of past time were ingenious

VOL. m.] OF CLASSICAL LAKDBCAPB. 175

(bbniifits also, to wliom the universe was a lyrical drama, and hy
whom whatsoever was said about it was merely a witty allegory,
or a graceful lie, of which the entire upshot and consummation
was a pretty statue in the middle of the court, or at the end of
the garden.

This, at least, is one of our forms of opinion about Greek
fhith ; not, indeed, possible altogether to any man of honesty or
ordinary powers of thought ; but still so venomously inherent
hi the modem philosophy that all the pure lightning of Garlyle
cannot as yet quite bum it out of any of us. And then, side
by side with tUs mere infidel folly, stands the bitter short-
dghtedness of Puritanism, holding the classical god to be either
«imp1y an idol, — a block of stone ignorantly, though sincerely,
worshipped, — or else an actual diabolic or betraying power,
usurping the place of god.

§ 5. Both these Puritanical estimates of Oreek deity are of
course to some extent true. The conruption of classical wor-
ship is barren idolatry ; and that corraption was deepened, and
variously directed to their own purposes, by the evil angels.
But this was neither the whole, nor the principal part, of Pagan
worship. Pallas 'waa not, in the pure Greek mind, merely a
powerful piece of ivory in a temple at Athens; neither was the
choice of Leonidas between the alternatives granted him by the
Oracle, of personal death, or ruin to his country, altogether a
work of the Devil*s prompting.

§ 6. What, then, was actually the Greek god ? In what way
were these two ideas of human form, and divine power, credibly
associated in the ancient heart, so as to become a subject of
trae faith, irrespective equally of fable, idlegory, superstitious
trust in stone, and demoniacal influence t

It seems to me that the Greek had exactly the sakne in-
stinctive feeling about the elements that we have ourselves ;
that to Homer, as much as to Gaslmir de la Vigne, fire seemed
ravenous and pitiless; to Homer, as much as to Keats, the
sea- wave appeared wayward or idle, or whatever else it may
be to the poetical passion. But then the Greek reasoned upon
this sensation, saying to himself: ** I can light the fire, and put
it out ; I can dry this water up, or drink it. It cannot be the
fire or the water that rages, or that is wayward. But it must

176 OV CLASSICAL LANDSCAPE. [p ART IV.

be something t^t this fire and in the water, which I cannot
destroy hy extinguishing the one, or evaporating the other, any
more than I destroy myself by catting off my finger ; I was in
my finger, — ^something of me at least was ; I had a power over
it, and felt pain in it, though I am still as much myself when it
is gone. So there may be a power in the water which is not
water, but to which the water is as a body ; — ^whieh can strike
with it, move in it, suffer in it, yet not be destroyed in it.
This something, this great Water Spirit, I must not confuse
with the waves, which are only its body. Tkeif may flow
hither and thither, increase or diminish. That must be indi-
visible—imperishable — ^a god. So of fire also ; those rays
which I can stop, and in the midst of which I cast a shadow,
cannot be divine, nor greater than I. They cannot feel, but
there may be something in them that feels, — a glorious intel-
ligence, as much nobler and more swift than mine, as these
rays, which are its body, are nobler and swifter than my flesh ;
— the spirit of all light, and truth, and melody, and revolving
hours."

§ 7. It was easy to conceive, farther, that such spirits should
be able to assume at will a human form, in <5rder to hold inter-
course with men, or to perform any act for which their proper
body, whether fire, earth, or air, was unfitted. And it would
have been to place them beneath, instead of above, humanity,
if, assuming the form of man, they could not also have tasted
his pleasures. Hence the easy step to the more or less material
ideas of deities, which are apt at first to shock us, but which
are indeed only dishonorable so far as they represent the gods
as false and unholy. It is not the materialism, but the vice,
which degrades the conception ; for the materialism itself is
never positive or complete. There is always some sense of
exaltation in the spiritual and immortal body ; and of a power
proceeding from the visible form through all the infinity of the
element ruled by the particular god. The precise nature of
the idea is well seen in the passage of the Iliad which describes
the river Scamander defending the Trojans against Achilles.
In order to remonstrate with the hero, the god assumes a
human form, which nevertheless is in some way or other
instantly recognised by Achilles as that of the river-god : it is

VOL. m.] ' OF CLASSICAL LAKDSCAPS. Ill

addressed at onco as a river, not as a man ; and its voice is tLe
voice of a river, "out of the deep whirlpools."* Achilles
refuses to obey its commands ; and from the human form it
returns instantly into its natural or divine one, and endeavors
to overwhelm him with waves. Vulcan defends Achilles, and
sends fire against the river, which suffers in its water-body, till
it is able to bear no more. At last even the " nerve of the
river," or " strength of the river " (note the expression), feels
the fire, and this " strength of the river " addresses Vulcan in
supplications for respite. There is in this precisely the idea of
a vital part of the river-body, which acted and felt, and which,
if the fire reached it, was death, just as would he the case if it
touched a vital part of the human body. Throughout the
passage the manner of conception is perfectly clear and con-
sistent ; and if, in other places, the exact connection between
the ruHng spirit and the thing ruled is not so manifest, it is
only because it is almost impossible for the human mind to
dw^U long upon such subjects without falling into incon-
sistencies, and gradually slackening its effort to grasp the
entire truth ; until the more spiritual part of it slips from its
hold, and only the human form of the god is left, to be con-
ceived and described as subject to all the errors of humanity.
But I do not believe that the idea ever weakens itself down to
mere allegory. When Pallas is said to attack and strike down
Mars, it does not mean merely that Wisdom at that moment
prevailed against Wrath. It means that there are indeed two
great spirits, one entrusted to guide the human soul to wisdom
and chastity, the other to kin^e wrath and prompt to battle.
It means that these two spirits, on the spot where, and at the
moment when, a great contest was to be decided between all
that they each governed in man, then and there assumed
human form, and human weapons, and did verily and materially
strike at each other, until the Spirit of Wrath was crushed.
And when Diana is said to hunt with her nymphs in the
woods, it does not mean merely as Wordsworth puts it, that the

• Compare Lay of the Last Minstrel, canto i. stanza 15., and canto v.
■tanza 2. In the first instance, the river-epirit is accurately the Homeric
god, only Homer would have believed in it,— Scott did not; at least not
altogether.

8*

178 OV 01AS8I0AL LANBSCAPB. [pABT IT.

poet or shepherd saw the moon and stars glancing between the
branches of the trees, and wished to say so figuratively. It
means that there is a living spirit, to which the light of the
moon is a body ; which takes delight in glancing between the
clouds and following the wild beasts as they wander through
the night; and that tins spirit sometimes assumes a perfect
human form, and in thii^ form, with real arrows, pursues and
slays the wild beasts, which with its mere arrows of moonlight
it could not slay ; retaining, nevertheless, all the while, its
power, and being in the moonlight, and in all else that it rules.

§ 8. There is not the smallest inconsistency or unspirituality
in this conception. If there were, it would attach equally to
the appearance of the angels to Jacob, Abraham, Joshua, or
Manoah. In all those instances the highest authority which
governs our own faith requires us to conceive divine power
clothed with a human form (a form so real that it is recognised
for superhuman only by its " doing wondrously "), and retain-
ing, nevertheless, sovereignty and omnipresence in all the
world. This is precisely, as I understand it, the heathen idea
of a God ; and it is impossible to comprehend any single part
of the Greek mind until we g^asp this faithfully, not endea-
voring to explain it away in any wise, but accepting, with
frank decision and definition, the tangible existence of its dei-
ties ; — blue-eyed — white-fleshed — ^human-hearted, — capable at
their choice of meeting man absolutely in his own nature —
feasting with him — talking with him — ^fighting with him, eye to
eye, or breast to breast, as Mars with Diomed ; or else, dealing
with him in a more retired spirituality, as Apollo sending the
plague upon the Greeks, when his quiver rattles at his shoul-
ders as he moves, and yet the darts sent forth of it strike not
as arrows, but as plague ; or, finally, retiring completely into
the material universe which they properly inhabit, and dealing
with man through that, as Scamander with Achilles through
his waves.

§ 9. Nor is there anything whatever in the various actions
recorded of the gods, however apparently ignoble, to indicate
weakness of belief in them. Very frequently things which
appear to us ignoble are merely the simplicities of a pure and
truthful age. When Juno beats Diana about the ears with her

VOL. in.] OF CLASSICAL LANDSCAPE. 179

own quiver, for instance, we start at first, as if Homer could
not have believed that they were both real goddesses. Bat
what should Juno have done ? Killed Diana with a look ?
Naj, she neither wished to do so, nor could she have done so,
bj the very faith of Diana's goddess-ship. Diana is as immor-
tal as herself. Frowned Diana into submission ? But Diana
has come expressly to try conclusions with her, and will by no
means be frowned into submission. Wounded her with a celes-
tial lance f That sounds more poetical, but it is in reality partly
more savage, and partly more absurd, than Homer. More sa-
vage, for it makes Juno more cruel, therefore less divine ; and
more absurd, for it only seems elevated in tone, because we
use the word " celestial," which means nothing. What sort of
a thing is a " celestial *' lance ? Not a wooden one. Of what
then ? Of moonbeams, or clouds, or mist. Well, therefore,
Diana's arrows were of mist too ; and her quiver, and herself,
and Juno, with her lance, and all, vanish into mist. Why not
have said at once, if that is all you mean, that two mists met,
and one drove the other back ? That would have been rational
and intelligible, but not to talk of celestial lances. Homer had
no such misty fancy ; he believed the two goddesses were there
in true bodies, with true weapons, on the true earth ; and still
I ask, what should Juno have done ? Not beaten Diana ? No ;
for it is un-lady-like. Un-English-lady-like, yes ; but by no
means un-6reek-lady-like, nor even un-natural-lady-like. If
a modern lady does not beat her servant or her rival about
the ears, it is ofltener because she is too weak, or too proud,
than because she is of purer mind than Homer's Juno. She
will not strike them ; but she will overwork the one or slander
the other without pity ; and Homer would not have thought
that one whit more goddess-like than striking them with her
open hand.

§ 10. If, however, the reader likes to suppose that while the
two goddesses in personal presence thus fought with arrow and
quiver, there was also a broader and vaster contest supposed
by Homer between the elements they ruled ; and that the god-
dess of the heavens, as she struck the goddess of the moon on
the flushing cheek, was at the same instant exercising omnipre-
sent power in the heavens themselves, and gathering clouds,

OV CLASSICAL LANDSCAPE. [PABT IV.

•th which, filled with the moon's own arrows or beams, she
was encumbering and concealing the moon ; he is welcome to
this out-cany ing of the idea, provided that he does not pretend
to make it an interpretation instead of a mere extension, nor
think to explain away m j real, running, beautiful beaten Diana,
into a moon behind clouds.*

§ 11. It is only farther to be noted, that the Greek concep-
tion of Godhead, as it was much more real than we usuaUy
suppose, so it was much more bold and familiar than to a mo-
dem mind would be possible. I shall have something more to
observe, in a little while, of the danger of our modem habit of
endeavoring to raise ourselves to something like comprehen-
sion of the truth of divinity, instead of simply believing the
words in which the Deity reveals Himself to us. The Greek
erred rather on the other side, making hardly any effort to
conceive divine mind as above the human ;,and no more shrink-
ing from frank intercourse with a divine being, or dreading its
immediate presence, than that of the simplest of mortals.
Thus Atrides, enraged at his sword's breaking in his hand upon
the helmet of Paris, after he had expressly invoked the assist-
ance of Jupiter, exclaims aloud, as he would to a king who had
betrayed him, ''Jove, Father, there is not another god more
evil-minded than thou !" and Helen, provoked at Paris's defeat,
and oppressed with pouting shame both for him and for herself,
when Venus appears at her side, and would lead her back to
the delivered Paris, impatiently tells the goddess to '' go and
take care of Paris herself."

§ 12. The modem mind is naturally, but vulgarly and
unjustly, shocked by this kind of familiarity. Rightly under-
stood, it is not so much a sign of misunderstanding of the
divine nature as of good understanding of the human. The
Greek lived, in all things, a healthy, and, in a certain degree, a
perfect life. He had no morbid or sickly feeling of any kind.
He was accustomed to face death without the slightest shrink-

* Compare the exqidsite lines of 'Longfellow on the sanset in the Golden
Jjegend: —

" The day is done, and slowly from the scene
The stooping sun npgathers his spent shafts,
And puts them back into his golden ^uiyer."

VOL. in.] OF CLASSICAL LANDSCAPE. 181

ing, to nndergo all kinds of bodily hardship without complaint,
and to do what he supposed right and honorable, in most
cases, as a matter of course. Confident of his own immortality,
and of the power of abstract justice, he expected to be dealt
with in the next world as was right, and left the matter much
in his gods' hands ; but being thus immortal, and finding in
his own soul something which it seemed quite as difficult to
master, as to rule the elements, he did not feel that it was an
appalling superiority in those gods to have bodies of water,
or fire, instead of flesh, and to have various work to do among
the clouds and waves, out of his human way ; or sometimes,
even, in a sort of service to himself. Was not the nourishment
of herbs and flowers a kind of ministering to his wants ? were
not the gods in some sort his husbandmen, and spirit-servants ?
Their mere strength or omnipresence did not seem to him a
distinction absolutely terrific. It might be the nature of one
being to be in two places at once, and of another to be only in one ;
but that did not seem of itself to infer any absolute lordliness of
one nature above the other, any more than an insect must be a
nobler creature than a man, because it can see on four sides of
its head, and the man only in front. They could kill him or
torture him, it was true ; but even that not unjustly, or not
for ever. There was a fate, and a Divine Justice, greater than
they ; so that if they did wrong, and he right, he might fight
it out with them, and have the better of them at last. In a
general way, they were wiser, stronger, and better than he ;
and to ask counsel of them, to obey them, to sacrifice to them,
to thank them for all good, this was well ; but to be utterly
downcast before them, or not to tell them his mind in plain
Greek if they seemed to him to be conducting themselves in an
ungodly manner, — ^this would not be well.

§ 13. Such being their general idea of the gods, we can now
easily understand the habitual tone of their feelings towards
what was beautiftil in nature. With us, observe, the idea of the
Divinity is apt to get separated from the life of nature ; and
imagining oiir God upon a cloudy throne, far above the earth,
and not in the flowers or waters, we approach those visible
things with a theory that they are dead, governed by physical
laws, and so forth. But coming to them, we find the theory

182 OV CLASeiOAl. landscape. [part IV.

fail ; that they are not dead , that, mj what we choose ahout
them, the instinctiye sense of their heing alive is too strong for
us ; and in scorn of all physical law, the wilful fountain sings,
and the kindly flowers rejoice. And then, puzzled^ and yet
happy : pleased, and yet ashamed of being so ; accepting
sympathy from nature, which we do not believe it gives, and
giving sympathy to nature, which we do not believe it receives,
— mixing, besides, all manner of purposeful play and conceit
with these involuntary fellowships, — we fall necessarily into
the curious web of hesitating sentiment, pathetic fallacy, and
wandering fancy, which form a great part of our modem view
of nature. But the Oreek never removed his god out of nature
at all ; never attempted for a moment to contradict his instinct-
ive sense that God was everywhere. "The tree is glad,"
said he, " I know it is ; I can cut it down ; no matter, there
was a nymph in it. The wat^r does sing," said he ; "I can
dry it up ; but no matter, there was a naiad in it." But
in thus clearly defining his belief, observe, he threw it entirely
into a human form, and gave his faith to nothing but the image
of his own humanity. What sympathy and fellowship he had,
were always for the spirit in the stream, not for the stream ;
always for the dryad in the wood not for the wood. Content
with this human sympathy, he approached the actual waves
and woody fibres with no sympathy at all. The spirit that
ruled them, he received as a plain fact. Them, also, ruled
and material, he received as plain facts ; they, without their
spirit, were dead enough. A rose was good for scent, and a
stream for sound and coolness ; for the rest, one was no more
than leaves, the other no more than water ; he could not make
anything else of them ; and the divine power, which was
involved in their existence, having been all distilled away by
him into an independent Flora or Thetis, the poor leaves or
waves were left, in mere cold corporealness, to make the most
of their being discemibly red and soft, clear and wet, and un-
acknowledged in any other power whatsoever.

§ 14. Then, observe farther, the Greeks lived in the midst
of the most beautiful nature, and were as familiar with blue
sea, clear air, and sweet outlines of mountain, as we are with
brick walls, black smoke, and level fields. This perfect

VOL. nij OF CLASSICAL LANDSCAPE. 188

famaiaritj rendered all snch scenes of natural beauty unexcit-
ing, if not indifferent to them, by lulling and overwearying the
imagination as far as it was concerned with such things ; but
there was another kind of beauty which they found it required
effort to obtain, and which, when thoroughly obtained, seemed
more glorious than any of this wild loveliness — the beauty of
the human countenance and form. This, they perceived, could
only be reached by continual exercise of virtue ; and it was in
Heaven's sight, and theirs, all the more beautiful because it
needed this self-denial to obtain it. So they set themselves
to reach this, and having gained it, gave it their principal
thoughts, and set it off with beautiful dress as best they might.
But making this their object, they were obliged to pass their
lives in simple exercise and disciplined employments. Living
wholesomely, ^ving themselves no fever fits, either by fasting
or over-eating, constantly in the open air, and full of animal
spirit and physical power, they became incapable of every
morbid condition of mental emotion. Unhappy love, disap*
pointed ambition, spiritual despondency, or any other disturb-
ing sensation, had little power over the well-braced nerves,
and healthy flow of the blood ; and what bitterness might yet
fasten on them was soon boxed or raced out of a boy, and
spun or woven out of a girl, or danced out of both. They had
indeed their sorrows, true and deep, but still, more like chil-
dren's sorrows than burs, whether bursting into open cry of
pain, or hid with shuddering under the veil, still passing over
the soul as clouds do over heaven, not sullying it, not mingling
with it ; — darkening it perhaps long or utterly, but still not
becoming one with it, and for the most part passing away in
dashing rain of tears, and leaving the man unchanged ; in
nowise affecting, as our sorrow does, the whole tone of his
thought and imagination thenceforward.

How far our melancholy may be deeper and wider than
theirs, in its roots and view, and therefore nobler, we shall
consider presently ; but at all events, they had the advantage
of us in being entirely free from all those dim and feverish
sensations which result from unhealthy state of the body. I
believe that a large amount of the dreamy and sentimental
sadness, tendency to reverie, and general patheticalness of

184 OF CLASSICAL LANDSCAPS. [pART lY.

modem life results merely from derangement of stomacli;
holding to the Greek life the same relation that the feverish
night of an adult does to a child's sleep.

§ 15. Farther. The human beauty, which, whether in its
bodily being or in imagined divinity, had become, for the rea-
sons we have seen, the principal object of culture and sympa-
thy to these Greeks, was, in its perfection, eminently orderly,
symmetrical, and tender. Hence, contemplating it constantly
in this state, they could not but feel a proportionate fear of
all that was disorderly, unbalanced, and rugged. Having
trained their stoutest soldiers into a strength so delicate and
lovely, that their white flesh, with their blood upon it, should
look like ivory stained with purple;* and having always
around them, in the motion and majesty of this beauty, enough
for the full employment of their imagination, they shrank with
dread or hatred from all the ruggedness of lower nature, —
from the wrinkled forest bark, the jagged hill-crest, and irre-
gular, inorganic storm of sky ; looking to these for the most
part as adverse powers, and taking pleasure only in such por-
tions of the lower world as were at once conducive to the rest
and health of the human frame, and in harmony with the laws
of its gentler beauty.

§ 16. Thus, as far as I recollect, without a single exception,
every Homeric landscape, intended to be beautiful, is composed
of a fountain, a meadow, and a shady grove. This ideal is
very interestingly marked, as intended for a perfect one, in
the fifth book of the Odyssey ; when Mercury himself stops
for a moment, though on a message, to look at a landscape
''which even an immortal might be gladdened to behold."
This landscape consists of a cave covered with a running vine,
all blooming into grapes, and surrounded by a grove of alder,
poplar, and sweet-smelling cypress. Four fountains of white
(foaming) water, springing in succession (mark the orderliness),
and close to one another, flow away in different directions,
through a meadow full of violets and parsley (parsley, to mark
its moisture, being elsewhere called "marsh-nourished," and
associated with the lotus) ;t the air is perfumed not only by
these violets and by the sweet cypress, but by Calypso's fire
• Iliad iv. Ul. f Iliad a 770.

YOU m.] OV CLASSICAL LANDSCAPE. 185

of finely chopped cedar wood, which sends a smoke as of
incense, through the island ; Calypso herself is singing ; and
finally, npon the trees are resting, or roosting, owls, hawks,
and " long-tongued sea-crows." Whether these last are con-
sidered as a part of the ideal landscape, as marine singing-
hirds, I know not ; hut the approval of Mercury appears to be
elicited chiefly by the fountains and violet meadow.

§ 17. Now the notable things in this description are, first,
the evident subservience of the whole landscape to human
comfort, to the foot, the taste, or the smell ; and, secondly, that
throughout the passage there is not a single figurative word
expressive of the things being in any wise other than plain
grass, fruit or flower. I have used the term *' spring " of the
fountains, because, without doubt, Homer means that they
sprang forth brightly, having their source at the foot of the
rocks (as copious fountains nearly always have) ; but Homer
does not say " spring," he says simply flow, and uses only one
word for " growing softly," or " richly," of the tall trees, the
vine, and the violets. There is, however, some expression of
sympathy with the sea-birds ; he speaks of them in precisely
. the same terms, as in other places of naval nations, saying they
" have care of the works of the sea."

§ 18. If we glance through the references to pleasant land-
scape which occur in other parts of the Odyssey, we shall
alwacys be struck by this quiet subjection of their every feature
to human service, and by the excessive similarity in the scenes.
Perhaps the spot intended, after this, to be most perfect, may
be the garden of Alcinous, where the principal ideas are, still
more definitely, order, symmetry, and fruitfulness ; the beds
being duly ranged between rows of vines, which, as well as
the pear, apple, and fig-trees, bear fruit continually, some
grapes being yet sour, while others are getting black ; there
are plenty of " orderly square beds of herbs," chiefly leeks,
and two fountains, one running through the garden, and one
under the pavement of the palace to a reservoir for the citizens.
Ulysses, pausing to contemplate this scene, is described nearly
in the same terms as Mercury pausing to contemplate the wilder
meadow ; and it is interesting to observe, that, in spite of all
Homer's love of symmetry, the god's admiration is excited by

186 OF CLASSICAL LANDSCAPE. [pAKt IV.

the free fonntains, wild violets, and wandering vine ; bnt the
mortal's, by the vines in rows, the leeks in beds, and the fonn-
tains in pipes.

Ulysses has, however, one touching reason for loving Tines
in rows. His father had given him fifty rows fbr himself, when
he was a boy, with com between them (just as It now grows
in Italy). Proving his identity afterwards to his father, whom
he finds at work in his garden, *^ with thick gloves on, to keep
his hands from the thorns," he reminds him of these fifty rows
of vines, and of the " thirteen pear-trees and ten apple-trees "
which he had given him ; and Laertes faints npon his neck.

§ 19. If Ulysses had not been so much of a gardener, it
might have been received as a sign of considerable feeling for
landscape beauty, that, intending to pay the very highest pos-
sible compliment to the Princess Nansicaa (and having indeed,
the moment before, gravely asked her whether she was a god-
dess or not), he says that he feels, at seeing her, exactly as he
did when he saw the young palm-tree growing at Apollo's
shrine at Delos. But I think the taste for trim hedges and
upright trunks has its usual influence over him here also, and
that he merely means to tell the princess that she is delight-
fally tall and straight.

§ 20. The princess is, however, pleased by his address, and
tells him to wait outside the town, till she can speak to her
father about him. The spot to which she directs him is
another ideal piece of landscape, composed of a " beautiful
grove of aspen poplai^, a fountain, and a meadow," near the
road-side ; in fkct, as nearly as possible such a scene as meets
the eye of the traveller every instant on the much-despised
lines of road through lowland France; for instance, on the
railway between Arras and Amiens; — scenes, to my mind,
quite exquisite in the various grouping and grace of their innu-
merable poplar avenues, casting s weet, tremulous shadpws over
their level meadows and labyrintSine streams. We know that
the princess means aspen poplars, because soon afterwards we
find her fifty maid-servants at the palace, all spinning, and in
perpetual motion, compared to the " leaves of the tall poplar ;"
and it is with exquisite feeling that it is made afterwards* the
* OdysBey, x. 610.

VOL. lU.] OF CLAflBICAl. LANDSCAPE. 187

chief tree in the groves of Proserpine ; its light and quivering
leafage having exactly the melancholy expression of fragility,
faintness, and inconstancy which the ancients attrihuted to the
disembodied spirit.* The likeness to the poplars by the streams
of Amiens k more marked still in the Iliad, where the young
Simois, straek by Ajax, falls to the earth ** like an aspen that
has grown in an irrigated meadow, smooth^tranked, the soft
shoots springing from its top, which some coach-making man
has cut down with his keen iron, that he may fit a wheel ^f it
to a fair chariot, and it lies parching by the side of the stream."
It is sufficiently notable that Homer, living in mountainous and
rocky countries, dwells thus delightedly on all the ^at bits ;
and so I think invariably the inhabitants of mountain countries
do, but the inhabitants of the plains do not, in any similar
way, dwell delightedly on mountains. The Dutch painters
are perfectly contented with their flat fields and pollards :
Rubens, though he had seen the Alps, usually composes his
landscapes of a hayfield or two, plenty of pollards and willows,
a distant spire, a Dutch house with a moat about it, a windmill,
and a ditch. The Flemish sacred painters are the only ones
who introduce mountains in the distance, as we shall see
presently ; but rather in a formal way than with any appear-
ance of enjoyment. So Shakspere never speaks of mountains
with the slightest joy, but only of lowland flowers, flat fields,
and Warwickshire streams. And if we talk to the mountainew,
he will usually characterise his own country to us as a " pays
aflreux," or in some equivalent, perhaps even more violent,
German term: but the lowland peasant does not think his
country frightful ; he either will have no ideas beyond it, or
about it ; or will think it a very perfect country, and be apt to
regard any deviation from its general principle of flatness with
extreme disfavor ; as the Lincolnshire farmer in Alton Locke :
'* I'll shaw 'ee some'at like a field o' beans, I wool — none o'
this here darned ups and downs o' hills, to shake a body's
victuals out of his inwards — all so vlat as a bam doer, for vorty
mile on end — ^there's the country to live in I"

I do not say whether this be altogether right (though cer-
tsdnly not wholly wrong), but it seems to me that there must

* Compare the passage in Dante referred to above, Chap. XIT. § 6.

188 OF CLASSICAL LANDSCAPE. [PART IV.

be in the simple freshness and fniitfulness of level land, in
its pale upright trees, and gentle lapse of silent streams,
enough for the satisfaction of the human mind in general ; and
I so far agree with Homer, that if I had to educate an artist to
the full perception of the meaning of the word ** gracefulness"
in landscape, I should send him neither to Italj nor to Greece,
but simply to those poplar groves between Arras and Amiens.

§ 21. But to return more definitelj to our Homeric land-
scape. When it is perfect, we have, as in the above instances,
the foliage and meadows together ; when imperfect, it is always
either the foliage or the meadow ; preeminently the meadow,
or arable field. Thus, meadows of asphodel are prepared for
the happier dead ; and even Orion, a hunter among the moun-
tains in his lifetime, pursues the ghosts of beasts in these
asphodel meadows after death * So the sirens sing in a meadow ;
and throughout the Odyssey there is a general tendency to the
depreciation of poor Ithaca, because it is rocky, and only fit for
goats, and has ** no meadows ;" for which reason Telemachus
refuses Atrides's present of horses, congratulating the Spartan
king at the same time on ruling over a plain which has *' plenty
of lotus in it, and rushes," with com and barley. Note this con-
stant dwelling on the marsh plants, or, at least, those which
grow in flat and well-irrigated land, or beside streams : when
Scamander, for instance, is restrained by Vulcan, Homer says,
very sorrowfully, that "all his lotus, and reeds, and rushes
were burnt ;" and thus Ulysses, after being shipwrecked and
nearly drowned, and beaten about the sea for many days
and nights, on raft and mast, at last getting ashore at the
mouth of a large river, casts himself down first upon its
rusheSf and then, in thankfulness, kisses the ''corn-giving
land," as most opposed, in his heart, to the fruitless and
devouring sea.t

§ 22. In this same passage, also, we find some peculiar
expressions of the delight which the Greeks had in trees, for,
when Ulysses first comes in sight of land, which gladdens him,
'' as the reviving of a father from his sickness gladdens his

• Odyssey, zi. 5*71. rriv. 18. The couch of Ceres, with Homer's usual
faithfulness, is made of a ploughed field, y. 127.
f Odyssey, v. 898.

VOL. III.] OP CLASSICAL LANDSCAPE. 189

children," it is not merely the sight of the land itself which
gives him such pleasure, hut of the " land and woodJ^ Homer
never throws away any words, at least in such a place as this ;
and what in another poet would have heen merely the filling
up of the deficient line with an otherwise useless word, is in
him the expression of the general Greek sense, that land of
any kind was in nowise grateful or acceptable till there was
tDood upon it (or corn ; hut the corn, in the fiats, could not bo
seen so far as the black masses of forest on the hill sides), and
that, as in being rushy and corn-giving, the low land, so
in being woody, the high land, was most grateful to the mind
of the man who for days and nights had been wearied on the
engulphing sea. And this general idea of wood and com, as
the types of the fatness of the whole earth, is beautifully
marked in another place of the Odyssey,* where the sailors
in a desert island, having no flour or com to offer as a meat
offering with their sacrifices, take the leaves of the trees, and
scatter them over the burnt offering instead.

§ 23. But still, every expression of the pleasure which
Ulysses has in this landing and resting, contains uninterruptedly
the reference to the utility and sensible pleasantness of idl
things, not to their beauty. After his first grateful kiss given
to the corn-growing land, he considers immediately how he is
to pass the night : for some minutes hesitating whether it will
be best to expose himself to the misty chill from the river,
or run the risk of wild beasts in the wood. He decides for the
wood, and finds in it a bower formed by a sweet and a wild
olive tree, interlacing their branches, or — perhaps more accu-
rately translating Homer's intensely graphic expression —
** changing their branches with each other" (it is very curious
how often, in an entanglement of wood, one supposes the
branches to belong to the wrong trees), and forming a roof
penetrated by neither rain, sun, nor wind. Under this bower
Ulysses collects the *^vain {or frustrate) outpouring of the
dead leaves" — another exquisite expression, used elsewhere of
useless grief or shedding of tears; — and, having got enough toge-
ther, maJLOS his bed of them, and goes to sleep, having covered
himself up with them, '' as embers are covered up with ashes."
• Odyssey, xil 857.

190 OV 0LA8SI0AL LANDBOAPI. [PABT IV.

Nothing can possibly be more intensely possesrire of tlie
fic'9 than this whole passage ; the sense of ntter deadness and
emptiness, and frustrate fall in the leaves ; of dormant life in
the human bodj^^-the fire» and heroism, and strength of it*
lulled under the dead brown heap, as embers under ashes, and
the knitting of interchanged and close strength of living
boughs above. But tfiere is not the smallest i^parent sense of
there being heanUy elsewhere than in the human being. The
wreathed wood is admired simply as being a perfect roof for it;
•the &Uen leaves only. as being a perfect bed for it ; uid there is
literally no more excitement of emotion in Homer, as he
describes them, nor does he expect us to be more excited
or touched by hearing about them, than if he had been telling
us how the chambermaid at the Bull aired the four-poster, and
put on two extra blankets.

§ 24. Now, exaetly this same contemplation of subservience
to human use makes the Oredc take some pleasure in rotk^t
when they assume one particular form,' but one only«— that of
a cave. They are evidently quite frightful things to him under
any oth^ condition, «id most of all if they are rough and
jagged; but if smooth, looking ** sculptured,'' like the sides
of a ship, and forming a cave or shelter for him, he begins to
think them endurable. Hence, associating the ideas of rich
and sheltering wood, sea, becalmed and made useful as a port
by projecting promontories of rock, and smoothed caves or
grottoes in the rocks themselves, we get the pleasantest idea
whkh the Greek could form of a landscape, next to a marsh
with poplars in it ; not, indeed, if possible, ever to be without
these last : thus, in commending the Cyclops' country as one
possessed of every perfection. Homer first says : ^ They have
soft nusrskf meadows near the sea, and good, rich, crumbling,
plottghing-land, givag fine de^ crops, and vines always giving
fruit ;" then, ''a port so quiet, that they have no need of cables
in it ; and at the head of the port, a beautifhl dear spring just
under a cavet Aod dtpempopiars all round it"^

* OdyiMy, i& isa. Ae. Henee Mflton's

** From halted spring, and dala^
£dg«d with poplar pale.*

VOU III.] PV ChABaiOAh LAKD6CAPS» 191

§ 25, This» it will be fi^n* is v^rj iiearlf Homer's nsoal
'* ideal;" but, going into the middle of tibe idund, Ulysses
comes on a rougher and less agreeable bit* thoogh still fulfilling
certiM^ required conditions of endurableness^ a '* caye shaded
with laureW which, having no poplars about it» is« howerer,
meant to be somewhat frightful, and only fit to be inhabited
by a Cyclops. So in the country of the Lsestrygons, Homer,
preparing his reader gradually for something yery disagree-
able, represents the rocks as bare and " exposed to the sun ;"
only with some smooth and slippery roads oyer them, by which
the trui^s bring down wood from the higher hills. Any
(me familiar with Swiss slopes of hills must remember how
often he has descended, sometimes faster than was altoge*
ther intentional, by these same slippery woodman's track
roads.

And thus, in general, wheneyer the landscape is intended to
be loyely, it yerges towards the ploughed land and poplars ;
or, at worst, to woody rocks,; but, if intended to be painful,
the rocks are bare and ** sharp." This last epithet, constantly
used by Homer for moi^^tains, does not altogether ciMrrespond,
in Greek, to the English term, nor is it mtended merely to
characterize the sharp mountain summits ; for it ney^ would
be applied simply to the edge or point of a sword, but signifies
rather ** harsh," " bitter," or " painful," being a|>plied habitu-
ally to fate, death, and in Od. ii. 333. to a halter ; and, as ex*
pressiye g£ general objectionableness and unpleasantness, to
all high, dangerous, or peaked mountains, as the Maleian pro-
montory (a much dreaded one), the crest of Parnassus, the
Tereian mountain, and a grim or untoward, though, by keeping
off the force of the sea, protectiye, rock at the mouth of the
Jardanus ; as weU as habitually to inaccessible or impregnable
fortresses built on heights.

§ 26. In all this I cannot too' strongly mark the utter
absence of any trace of the feeling for what we csU the
picturesque, and the constant dwelling of the writer's mind
on what was available, pleasant, or useful ; his ideas respecting
all landscape being not uncharacteristically summed, finally,
by Pallas herself ; when, meeting Ul^^sses, who after his long
wandering does not recognize his own country, and meaning

192 or CLASSICAL LANDSCAPB. [pART IV.

to describe it as politely and soothingly as possible, sbe says :*
— " This Ithaca of ours is, indeed, a rough country enough,
and not good for driving in ; but, still, things might be worse :
it has plenty of com, and good wine, and ahoayt rain^ and
soft nourishing dew; and it has good feeding for goats and
oxen, and all manner of wood, and springs fit to drink at all
the year round."

We shall see presently how the blundering, pseudo-pictu-
resque, pseudo-classical minds of Claude and the Renaissance
landscape painters, wholly missing Homer's practical common
sense, and equally incapable of feeling the quiet natural grace
and sweetness of his asphodel meadows, tender aspen poplars,
or running vines, — ^fastened on his porta and cavea^ as the only
available features of his scenery ; and appointed the type of
<' classical landscape " thenceforward to consist in a bay of
insipid sea, and a rock with a hole through it.t

§ 27. It may indeed be thought that I am assuming too
hastily that this was the general view of the Greeks respecting
landscape, because it was Homer's. But I believe the true
mind of a nation, at any period, is always best ascertainable
by examining that of its greatest men ; and that simpler and
truer results will be attainable for us by simply comparing
Homer, Dante, and Walter Scott, than by attempting (what
my limits must have rendered absurdly inadequate, and in
which, also, both my time and knowledge must have failed me)
an analysis of the landscape in the range of contemporary
literature. All that I can do, is to state the general impres-
sion which has been made upon me by my desultory reading,
and to mark accurately the grounds for this impression, in the
works of the greatest men. Now it is quite true that in others
of the Oreeks, especially in ^schylus and Aristophanes, there
is infinitely more of modem feeling, of pathetic fallacy, love
of picturesque or beautiful form, and other such elements, than
there is in Homer ; but then these appear to me just the parts
of them which were not Greek, the elements of their minds by

• Odyssey, xiiL 286. Ac

f Educated, as we shall see hereafter, first in this school, Turner gave
the hackneyed composition a Itrange power and freshnesa^ in his Glaucus
aadSeylla.

VOL. III.] OF CLASSICAL LANDSCAPE. 193

which (as one division of the human race always must be with
subsequent ones) they are connected with the mediaevals and
moderns. And without doubt, in his influence over future
mankind, Homer is eminently the Greek of Greeks ; if I were
to associate any one with him it would be Herodotus, and I
believe all I have said of the Homeric landscape will be found
equally true of the Herodotean, as assuredly it will be of the
Platonic ; the contempt, which Plato sometimes expresses by
the mouth of Socrates, for the country in general, except so
far as it is shady, and has cicadas and running streams to make
pleasant noises in it, being almost ludicrous. But Homer is
the great type, and the more notable one because of his influ-
ence on Virgil, and, through him, on Dante, and all the after
ages : and in* like manner, if we can get the abstract of medi-
aeval landscape out of Dante, it will serve us as well as if we
had read all the songs of the troubadours, and help us to the
farther changes in derivative temper, down to all modem
time.

§ 28. I think, therefore, the reader may safely accept the
conclusions about Greek landscape which I have got for him
out of Homer ; and in these he will certainly perceive some-
thing very different from the usual imaginations we form of
Greek feelings. We think of the Greeks as poetical, ideal,
imaginative, in the way that a modem poet or novelist is ;
supposing that their thoughts about their mythology and world
were as visionary and artificial as ours are : but I think the
passages I have quoted show that it was not so, although it may
be difficult for us to apprehend the strange minglings in them
of the elements of faith, which, in our days, have been blended
with other parts of human nature in a totally different guise.
Perhaps the Greek mind may be best imagined by taking, as
its groundwork, that of a good, conscientious, but illiterate,
Scotch Presbyterian Border farmer of a century or two back,
having perfect faith in the bodily appearances of Satan and
his imps ; and in all kelpies, brownies, and fairies. Substitute
for the indignant terrors in this man's mind, a general persua-
sion of the Divinity i more or less beneficent, yet faultful, of all
these beings ; that is to say, take away his belief in the demo-
niacal malignity of the fallen spiritual world, and lower, in the

9

194 or CLASSICAL landscapk. [part iv.

same degree, his eonceptions of the angelical, retaining for him
the same firm faith in both ; keep his ideas about flowers and
beautiful scenerj much as they are, — ^his delight in regular
ploughed land and meadows, and a neat garden (only with rows
of gooseberry bushes instead of vines,) being, in all probability,
about accurately represcntativo of the feelings of Ulysses ;
then, let the military spirit that is in him, glowing against the
Border forager, or the foe of old Flodden and Chevy-Chase, be
made more principal, with a higher sense of nobleness in
soldiership, not as a careless excitement, but a knightly duty ;
and increased by high cultivation of every personal quality,
not of mere shaggy strength, but graceful strength, aided by
a softer climate, and educated in all proper harmony of sight
and sound : finally, instead of an informed Christian, suppose
him to have only the patriarchal Jewish knowledge of the
Deity, and even this obscured by tradition, but still thoroughly
solemn and faithful, requiring his continual service as a priest
of burnt sacrifice and meat offering ; and I think we shall get
a pretty close approximation to the vital being of a true old
Greek ; some slight difference still existing in a feeling which
the Scotch farmer would have of a pleasantness in blue hills
and running streams, wholly wanting in the Greek mind ; and
perhaps also some difference of views on the subjects of truth
and honesty. But the miun points, the easy, athletic, strongly
logical and argumentative, yet fiinciful and credulous, characters
of mind, would be very similar in both ; and the most serious
change in the substance of the stuff among ^he modifica-
tions above suggested as necessary to turn the Scot into the
Greek, is that effect of softer climate and surrounding luxury,
inducing the practice of various forms of polbhed art, — the
more polished, because the practical and realistic tendency of
the Hellenic mind (if my interpretation of it be right) would
quite prevent it from taking pleasure in any irregularities of
form, or imitations of the weeds and wildnesses of that moun-
tain nature with which it thought itself bom to contend. In
its utmost refinement of work, it sought eminently for order-
liness : carried the principle of the leeks in squares, and
fountains in pipes, perfectly out in its streets and temples ;
formalized whatever decoration it put into its minor architectu-

VOL. in.] OV CLASSICAL LAH08OAFS. IM

tbI mouldings, and reserved its whole heart ancl power to
represent the action of living men, or gods> though not uncon-
scious, meanwhile, of

** The simple, the sincere delight ;
The habitual scene of hill and dale ;
The rural herds, the vernal gale ;
The tangled vetcti^ pd^le blooim ;
The fragrance of the bean's perfnme,^
Theirs, thein idone, who cultivate the soil.
And drink the cup of thirst, and eat the bread of loiL**

IM OV UMDIMVAL LANIWOAPI. [PAST IV.

OHAPTEE XIV

OV MEBUBYAL LANDSCAPE : — riBST, TBB FIELDS.

§ 7. In onr examination of tbe spirit of classical landscape, we
were obliged to confine oorselves to what is left to us in written
description. Some interesting results might indeed have been
obtained bj examining the Egyptian and Ninevite landscape
scnlpture, but in nowise conclusive enough to be worth the
pains of the inquiry ; for the landscape of sculpture is necessarily
confined in range, and usually inexpressive of the complete feel-
ings of the workman, being introduced rather to explain the
place and circumstances of events, than for its own sake. In the
Middle Ages, however, the case is widely different. We have
written landscape, sculptured landscape, and painted landscape^
all bearing united testimony to the tone of the national mind in
almost every remarkable locality of Europe.

§ 2. That testimony, taken in its breadth, is very curiously
conclusive. It marks the mediaeval mind as agreeing altogether
with the ancients, in holding that fiat land, brooks, and groves
of aspens, compose the pleasant places of the earth, and that
rocks and mountains are, for inhabitation, altogether to be
reprobated and detested ; but as disagreeing with the classical
mind totally in this other most important respect, that the
pleasant flat land is never a ploughed field, nor a rich lotus
meadow good for pasture, but garden ground covered with
flowers, and divided by fragrant hedges, with a castle in the
middle of it. The aspens are delighted in, not because they
are good for " coach-making men" to make cart-wheels of, but
because they are shady and graceful ; and the fruit-trees,
covered with delicious fruit, especiaUy apple and orange,
occupy still more important positions in the scenery. Singing'

VOL. ni.] X. THS FORxerr. 197

birds — ^not "sea-crows," but nightingales* — ^perch on every
bongh ; and the ideal occupation of mankind is not to cultivate
either the garden or the meadow, but to gather roses and eat
oranges in the one, and ride out hawking over the other.

Finally, mountain scenery, though considered as disagree-
able for general inhabitation, is always introduced as being
proper to meditate in, or to encourage communion with higher
beings ; and in the ideal landscape of daily life, mountains are
considered agreeable things enough, so that they be far enough
away.

In this great change there are three vital points Jent2?SSirSc"
to be noticed. t«n'

The first, the disdain of agricultural pursuits by idleness
the nobility; a fatal change, and one gradually bringing
about the ruin of that nobility. It is expressed in the mediaeval
landscape by the eminently pleasurable and horticultural cha-
racter of everything ; by the fences, hedges, castle walls, and
masses of useless, but lovely flowers, especially roses. The
knights and ladies are represented always as singing, or making
love, in these pleasant places. The idea of setting an old
knight, like Laertes (whatever his state of fallen fortune),
** with thick gloves on to keep his hands from the thorns," to
prune a row of vines, would have been regarded as the most
monstrous violation of the decencies of life ; and a senator, once
detected in the home employments of Gincinnatus, could, I sup-
pose, thenceforward hardly have appeared in society.

The second vital point is the evidence of a more $ 4 & Poetieai
sentimental enjoyment of external nature. A J^SeT"^ ^
Greek, wishing really to enjoy himself, shut himself into a
beautiful atrium, with an excellent dinner, and a society of
philosophical or musical Mends. But a medieval knight went
into his pleasance, to gather roses and hear the birds sing ; or
rode out hunting or hawking. His evening feast, though riot-
ous enough sometimes, was not the height of his day's enjoy-
ment; and if the attractions of the world are to be shown
typically to him, as opposed to the horrors of death, they are

* The peculiar dislike felt by the mediiBvals for the sea, is so interesting
a subject of inquiry, that I have reserved it for separate discussion in
another work, in present preparation, "Harbors of England."

198 OF MBDIJEVAL LAKD6CAPS. [PART IT.

never represented hy a full feast in a chamber, bat hj a delicate
dessert in an orange grove, with musicians under the trees ; or
a ride on a May morning, hawk on fist.

This change is evidently a healthj, and a very interesting
one.

|fi.8.i>totiirb- The third vital point is the marked sense that
•d ooDKienoe. ^j^j^ hawking and apple-eating are not altogether
right ; that there is something else to be done in the world
than that ; and that the mountains, as opposed to the pleasant
garden-ground, are places where that other something may best
be learned ; — which is evidently a piece of infinite and new
respect for the mountains, and another healthy change in the
tone of the human heart.

Let ns glance at the signs and various results of these changes,
one by one.

$6l DeriTftttTt The two first named, evil and good as they are,
i**L^of "* ^^'y closely connected. The more poetical
flowers. delight in external nature proceeds just from the

fact that it is no longer looked upon with the eye of the farmer;
and in proportion as the herbs and flowers cease to be regarded
as useful, they are fislt to be charming. Leeks are not now the
most important objects in the garden, bnt lilies and roses ; the
herbage which a Greek would have looked at only with a view
to the number of horses it would feed, is regarded by the
medieval knight as a green carpet fer fiur feet to dance upon,
and the beauty of its softness and color is proportionally felt
by him ; while the brook, which the Greek i^oieed to dismiss
into a reservoir under the palace threshold, would be, by the
mediflBval, distributed into pleasant pools, or forced into foun-
tains ; and regarded alternately as a mirror for fair facesi and a
witchery to ensnare the sunbeams and the rainbow.
1 7. s. Lett do- And this chango of feeling involves two others*
to 6oi " * very important. When the flowers and grass were
regarded as means of life, and therefore (as the thoughtful
laborer of the soil must always regard them) with the reverence
due to those gifts of God which were most necessary to his ex-
istence ; although their own beauty was less felt, their proceed-
ing from the Divine hand was more seriously acknowledged,
and the herb yielding seed, and fruit-tree yielding fruit, though

VOL. IIlJ I. THE FOREST. 199

in themselves less adrairetl, were yet solemnly connected in tlie
heart with the reverence of Ceres, Pomona, or Pan. But when
the sense of these necessary uses was more or less lost, among the
upper classes, hy the delegation of the art of husbandry to the
hands of the peasant, the flower and fruit, whose bloom or rich-
ness thus became a mere source of pleasure, were regarded
with lesB solemn sense of the Divine gifk in them ; and were
converted rather into toys than treasures, chance gifts for
gfdety, rather than promised rewards of labor ; so that while
the Greek could hardly have trodden the formal furrow, or
plucked the clusters from the trellised vine, without reverent
thoughts of the deities of field and leaf, who gave the seed to
fructify, and the bloom to darken, the mediieval knight plucked
the violet to wreathe in his lady's hair, or strewed the idle rose
on the turf at her feet, with little sense of anything in the niU;are
that gave them^ but a frail, accidental, involuntary exuberance ;
while also the Jewish sacrificial system being now done away,
as well as the Pagan mythology, and, with it, the whole con-
ception of meat offering or firstfruits offering, the chiefest
seriousness of all the thoughts connected with the gifts of
natnre faded from the minds of the classes of men concerned
with art and literature ; while the peasant, reduced to serf level,
was incapable of imaginative thought, owing to his want of
general cultivation. But on the other hand, exactly in propor-
tion as the idea of definite spiritual presence in material nature
was lost, the mysterious sense of unaccountahle life in the things
themselves would be increased, and the mind would instantly
be laid open to all those currents of fallacious, but pensive and
pathetic sympathy, which we have seen to bo characteristic of
modern times.

Farther : a singular difference would necessarily * ^^ b^^^?'
result from the far greater loneliness of baronial life, ^ Boitto^
deprived as it was of all interest in agricultural pursuits. The
palace of a Greek leader in early times might have gardens,
fields, and farms around it, but was sure to be near some busy
city or sea-port : in later times, the city itself became the princi-
pal dwelling-place, and the country was visited only to see how
the farm went on, or traversed in a line of march. Far other
was the life of the medieval baron, nested on his solitary jut of

200 OF MEDIAEVAL LANDSCAPE. [PART IV.

crag ; entering into cities only occasionally for some grave po-
litical or warrior's purpose, and, for the most part, passing the
years of his life in lion-like isolation ; the village inhabited by
his retainers straggling indeed about the slopes of the rocks at
his feet, but his own dwelling standing gloomily apart, between
them and the uncompanionable clouds, commanding, from sun-
set to sunrise, the flowing flame of some calm unvoyaged river,
and the endless undulation of the untraversable hiUs. How dif-
ferent must the thoughts about nature have been, of the noble
who lived among the bright marble porticos of the Greek groups
of temple or palace, — in the midst of a plain covered with corn
and olives, and by the shore of a sparkling and freighted sea, —
from those of the master of some mountain promontory in the
green recesses of Northern Europe, watching night by night,
from amongst his heaps of storm-broken stone, rounded into
towers, the lightning of the lonely sea flash round the sands of
Harlech, or the mists changing their shapes for ever, among the
changeless pines, that fringe the crests of Jura,
auottt^iirtoa- ^^^ ^^^ ^* without similar effect on the minds of
■««• men that their journey ings and pilgrimages became

more frequent than those of the Greek, the extent of ground
traversed in the course of them larger, and the mode of travel
more companionless. To the Greek, a voyage to Egypt,
or the Hellespont, was the subject of lasting fame and fable,
and the forests of the Danube and the rocks of Sicily clos-
ed for him the gates of the intelligible world. What parts of
that narrow world he crossed were crossed with fleets or armies ;
the camp always populous on the plain, and the ships drawn in
cautious symmetry around the shore. But to the mediaeval knight,
from Scottish moor to Syrian sand, the world was one great ex-
ercise ground, or fleld of adventure ; the staunch pacing of
his charger penetrated the pathlessness of outmost forest, and
sustained the sultriness of the most secret desert. Frequently
alone, — or, if accompanied, for the most part only by retainers
of lower rank, incapable of entering into complete sympathy
with any of his thoughts, — ^he must have been compelled often
to enter into dim companionship with the silent nature around
him, and must assuredly sometimes have talked to the way-
side flowers of his love, and to the fading clouds of his ambition.

m iiJi aijiiij^.^^

VOL. III.] I. THE FOREST. 201

§ 10. But, on the other hand, the idea of retire- 4 jyread of
ment from the world for the sake of self-mortifica- mountain*-
tion, of combat with demons, or communion with angels, and with
their King, — authoritatively commended as it was to all men
by the continual practice of Christ Himself, — gave to all
mountain solitude at once a sanctity and a terror, in the
medisBval mind, which were altogether different from anything
that it had possessed in the un-Christian periods. On the one
side, there was an idea of sanctity attached to rocky wilder-
ness, because it had always been among hills that the
Deity had manifested himself most intimately to men, and to
the hills that His saints had nearly always retired for medita-
tion, for especial communion with Him, and to prepare for
death. Men acquainted with the history of Moses, alone at
Horeb, or with Israel at Sinai,— of Elijah by the brook
Cherith, and in the Horeb cave ; of the deaths of Moses and
Aaron on Hor and Nebo; of the preparation of Jephthah's
daughter for h^r death among the Judea Mountains ; of the
continual retirement of Christ Himself to the mountains for
prayer. His temptation in the desert of the Dead Sea, His
sermon on the hills of Capernaum, His transfiguration on the
crest of Tabor, and his evening and morning walk« over Olivet
for the four or ^ve days preceding His crucifixion, — were not
likely to look with irreverent or unloving eyes upon the blue
hills that girded their golden horizon, or drew upon them the
mysterious clouds out of the height of the darker heaven.
But with this impression of their greater sanctity was involved
also that of a peculiar terror. In all this, — ^their haunting by
the memories of prophets, the presences of angels, and the
everlasting thoughts and words of the Redeemer, — the moun-
tain ranges seemed separated from the active world, and only
to be fitly approached by hearts which were condemnatory of
it. Just in so much as it appeared necessary for the noblest
men to retire to the hill-recesses before their missions could be
accomplished or their spirits perfected, in so far did the daily
world seem by comparison to be pronounced profane and dan-
gerous ; and to those who loved that world, and its work, the
mountains were thus voiceful with perpetual rebuke, and
necessarily contemplated with a kind of pain and fear, such

0*

202 OF MSDIiKVAL LANDSCAPE. [PART lY.

as a man engrossed hy vanity feels at being by some acci-
dent forced to hear a startling sermon, or to assist at a funeral
service. Every association of this kind was deepened by the
practice and the precept of the time ; and thousands of hearts,
which might otherwise have felt that there was loveliness ia
the wild landscape, shrank from it in dread, because they
knew that the monk retired to it for penance, and the hermit
for contemplation. The horror which the Greek had felt for
hills only when they were uninhabitable and barren, attached
itself now to many of the sweetest spots of earth ; the feeling
was conquered by political interests, but never by admiration ;
military ambition seized the frontier rock, or maintained itself
in the unassailable pass ; but it was only for their punishment,
or in their despair, that men consented to tread the crocused
slopes of the Chartreuse, or the soft glades and dewy pastures
of Vallombrosa.

§ 11. In all these modifications of temper and principle
there appears much which tends to passionate, affectionate, or
awe>struck observance of the features of natural scenery,
closely resembling, in all but this superstitious dread of moun-
tains, our feelings at the present day. But one character
which the mediasvala had in common with the ancients, and
that exactly the most eminent character in both, opposed
itself steadily to all the feelings we have hitherto been exa-
mining, — the admiration, namely, and constant watchfulness, of
human beauty. Exercised in nearly the same manner as the
Greeks, from their youth upwards, their countenances were
cast even in a higher mould; for, although somewhat less
regular in feature, and affected by mingHngs of Northern
bluntness and stolidity of general expression, together with
greater thinness of lip and shaggy formlessness of brow, these
less sculpturesque features were, nevertheless, touched with a
seriousness and refinement proceeding first from the modes of
thought inculcated by the Christian religion, and secondly
from their more romantic and various life. Hence a degree of
personal beauty, both male and female, was attained in the
Middle Ages, with which classical periods could show nothing
for a moment comparable ; and this beauty was set forth by
the most perfect splendor, united with grace, in dress, which

VOL. III.] I. THS FOREST. 203

the liumaa race have bitherto inyented. The strength of their
art-genius was directed in great part to this object ; and their
best workmen and most brilliant fanciers were employed in
wreathing the mail or embroidering the robe. The exquisite
arts of enamelling and chasing metal enabled them to make
the armor as radiant and delicate as the plumage of a tropical
bird ; and the most various and vivid imaginations were dis-
played in the alternations of color, and fiery freaks of form,
on shield and crest ; so that of all the beautiful things which
the eyes of men could fall upon, in the world about them, the
most beautiful must have been a young knight riding out in
morning sunshine, and in faithful hope.

« His broad, clear brow in sanlight glowed ;
On bamished hooves his war-horse trode;
From underneath his helmet flowed
His coal-black curls, as on he rode.
All in the blue, unclouded weather.
Thick jewelled shone the saddle leather;
The helmet and the helmet feather
Burned like one burning flame together;
And the gemmy bridle glittered free,
Like to some branch of stars we see
Hung in the golden goUvxy."

Now, the effect of this superb presence of hu- ^ ^Jjf-^ JeSty ^^
man beauty on men in general was, exactly as it
had been in Greek times, first, to turn their thoughts and
glances in great part away from all other beauty but that, and
to make the grass of the field take to them always more or less
the aspect of a carpet to dance upon, a lawn to tilt upon, or a
serviceable crop of hay ; and, secondly, in what attention they
paid to this lower nature, to make them dwell exclusively on
what was graceful, symmetrical, and bright in color. All
that was rugged, rough, dark, wild, unterminated, they rejected
at once, as the domain of " salvage men *' and monstrous giants :
all that they admired was tender, bright, balanced, enclosed,
symmetrical — only symmetrical in the noble and free sense :
for what we moderns call " symmetry,*' or " balance," differs
as much from mediseval symmetry as the poise of a grocer's
scales, or the balance of an Egyptian mummy with its hands

204 OF MXDI^VAL LAND8CAPK. [PABTIT.

tied to its sides, does from the balance of a knight on his horse,
stnkiDg with the battle-axe, at the gallop; the mummy's
balance looking wonderfully perfect, and yet sure to be one-
sided if you weigh the dust of it, — ^the knight's balance swaying
and changing like the wind, and yet as true and accurate as
the laws of life.
118. 6. Sym- x.nA this love of symmetiy was still farther

metrloBl govern- , , , i. -i . . -i «

meat of dMignu enhanced by the peculiar duties required of art at
the time ; for, in order to fit a flower or leaf for inlaying in
armor, or showing clearly in glass, it was absolutely necessary
to take away its complexity, and reduce it to the condition of a
disciplined and orderly pattern ; and this the more, because,
for all military purposes, the device, whatever it was, had to
be distinctly intelligible at extreme distance. That it should
be a good imitation of nature, when seen near, was of no
moment ; but it was of highest moment that when first the
knight's banner flashed in. the sun at the turn of the mountain
road, or rose, torn and bloody, through the drift of the battle
dust, it should still be discernible what the bearing was.

** At length, the freshening western blast
Aside the shroud of battle cast ;
And first the ridge of mingled spean
Above the brightening cloud appears;
And in the smoke the pennons flew,
As in the storm the white sea-mew ;
Then marked they, dashing broad and to
The broken billows of the war.
Wide raged the battle on the plain ;
Spears shook, and falchions flashed amain ;
Fell England's arrow-flight like rain ;
Crests rose, and stooped, and rose again.

Wild and disorderly.
Amidat the scene of tumult, high,
They »aw Lord MarmiofCs falcon Jly,
And ttainlets TungtalV^ banner vohite,
And Edmund Howard^ % Hon bright.**

It was needed, not merely that they should see it was a fal-
con, but Lord Marmion's falcon ; not only a lion, but the How-
ard's lion. Hence, to the one imperative end of intelligihiliti/,
every minor resemblance to nature was sacrificed, and above

you m,] I. THB FOBS8T. 205

all, tbe curved, which are chiefly the confusing lines ; so that
the straight, elongated back, doubly elongated tail, projected
and separate- daws, and other rectilinear unnaturalnesses of
form, became the means by which the leopard was, in midst of
the mist and storm of battle, distinguished from the dog, or the
lion from the wolf; the most admirable fierceness and vitality
being, in spite of these necessary changes (so often shallowly
sneered at by the modern workman), obtained by the old
designer.

Farther, it was necessary to the brilliant harmony of color,
and clear setting forth of everything, that all con^sing sha-
dows, all dim and doubtful lines should be rejected : hence at
once an utter denial of natural appearances by the great body
of workmen ; and a calm rest in a practice of representation
which would make either boar or lion blue, scarlet, or golden,
according to the device of the knight, or the need of such and
such a color in that place of the pattern ; and which wholly
denied that any substance ever cast a shadow, or was affected
by any kind of obscurity.

All this was in its way, and for its end, abso-fi^^-^be"'**^
lutely right, admirable, and delightful; and those dering of nature.
who despise it, laugh at it, or derive no pleasure from it,
are utterly ignorant of the highest principles of art, and are
mere tyros and beginners in the practice of color. But, admi-
rable though it might be, one necessary result of it was a far-
ther withdrawal of the observation of men from the refined and
subtle beauty of nature ; so that the workman who first was
led to think lightly of natural beauty, as being subservient to
human, was next led to think inaccurately of natural beauty,
because he had continually to alter and simplify it for his prac-
tical purposes.

§ 15. Now, assembling' all these different sources of the
peculiar medisval feeling towards nature in one view, we
have:

Ist. Love of the garden instead of love of the farm, leading to
a sentimental contemplation of nature, instead of a
practical and agricultural one. (§§ 3. 4. 6.)

2nd. Loss of sense of actual Divine presence, leading to fancies

206 OF HEDUEYAL LANDSCAPE. [PAKT IV.

of fiillacious animation, in lierbs, flowerf^ douda, &c.
(§7.)

3rcl. Perpetual, and more or less undisturbed, companionship
with wild nature. (§§ 8. 9.)

4th. Apprehension of demoniacal and angelic presence among
mountains, leading to a reverent dread of them. (§ 10.)

5th. Principalness of delight in human beauty, leading to com-
parative contempt of natural objects. (§ 11.)

6th. Consequent love of order, light, intelligibility, and sym-
metry, leading to dislike of the wildness darkness, and
mystery of nature. (§ 12.)

7th. Inaccuracy of observance of nature, induced by the ha-
bitual practice of change on its forma. (§ 13.)

From these mingled elements, we should necessarily expect
to find resulting, as the characteristic of medueval landscape
art, compared with Greek, a far higher sentiment about it, and
affection for it, more or less subdued by still greater respect for
the loveliness of man, and therefore subordinated entirely to
human interests ; mingled with curious traces of terror, piety,
or superstition, and cramped by various formalisms, — some wise
and necessary, some feeble, and some e^^hibiting needless igno-
rance and inaccuracy*

Under these lights, let us examine the facts,

§ 16. The landscape of the Middle Ages is represented in a
central manner by the illuminations of the MSS. of EoK^ances,
executed about the middle of the fifteenth century. On one
side of these stands the earlier landscape work, more or less
treated as simple decoration ; on the other, the later landscape
work, becoming morq or less affected with modem ideas and
modes of imitation.

These central fifteenth century landscapes are almost inva-
riably composed of a grove or two of tall trees, e^ winding river,
and a castle, or a garden : the peculiar feature of both these
last being trimfiess ; the artist always dwelling especially on
the fences ; wreathing the espaliers indeed prettily with sweet-
briar, and putting pots of orange-trees on the tops of the walls,
but taking great care that there shall be no loose bricks in the.
one, nor broken stakes in the other, — the trouble and ceaseless

VOL. in.] I. THB FOREST. 20*1

warfare of the times having rendered security one of the first
elements of pleasantness, and making it impossible for any ar-
tist to conceive Paradise but as surrounded by a moat, or to
distinguish the road to it better than by its narrow wicket gate,
and watchful porter.

§ 17. One of these landscapes is thus described by Macaulay :
" We have an exact square, enclosed by the rivers Pison,
Gihon, Hiddekel, and Euphrates, each with a convenient bridge
in the centre ; rectangular beds of flowers ; a long canal neatly
bricked and railed in ; the tree of knowledge, clipped like one
of the limes behind the Tuileries, standing in the centre of the
grand alley ; the snake turned round it, the man on the right
hand, the woman on the left, and the beasts drawn up in an
exact circle round them."

AH this is perfectly true ; and seems in the description very
curiously foolish. The only curious folly, however, in the matter
is the exquisite ndlveti of the historian, in supposing that the
quaint landscape indicates in the understanding of the painter
so marvellous an inferiority to his own ; whereas, it is altogether
his own wit that is at fault, in not comprehending that nations,
whose youth had been decimated among the sands and serpents
of Syria, knew probably nearly as much about Eastern scenery
as youths trained in the schools of the modem Boyal Academy ;
and that this curious symmetry was entirely symbolic, only
more or less modified by the various instincts which I have
traced above. Mr. Macaulay is evidently quite unaware that
the serpent with the human head, and body twisted round the
tree, was the universally accepted symbol of the evil angel,
from the dawn of art up to Michael Angelo ; that the greatest
sacred artists invariably place the man on the one side of the
tree, the woman on the other, in order to denote the enthroned
and balanced dominion about to fall by temptation ; that the
beasts are ranged (when they are so, though this is much more
seldom the case,) in a circle round them, expressly to mark
that they were then not wild, but obedient, intelligent, and
orderly beasts ; and that the four rivers are trenched and
enclosed on the four sides, to mark that the waters which now
wander in waste, and destroy in fury, had then for their
principal office to ** water the garden" of God. The descrip-

OF MXDUtYAL LAKDBCAPS. [pABT IT.

tion is, however, efficiently apposite and interesting, as bearing
upon what I have noted respecting the eminent Jence-loYuig
spirit of the mediaeyals.

§ 18. Together with this peculiar formality, we find an
infinite delight in drawing pleasant flowers, always articulating
and outlining them completely ; the sky is always blue, having
only a few delicate white clouds in it, and in the distance
are blue mountains, very far away, if the landscape is to be
simply delightful; but brought near, and divided into quaint
over-hanging rocks, if it is intended to be meditative, or a
place of saintly seclusion. But the whole of it always, —
flowers, castles, brooks, clouds, and rocks, — subordinate to the
human figures in the foreground, and painted for no other
end than that of explaining their adventures and occupations.

§ 19. Before the idea of landscape had been thus far
developed, the representations of it had been purely typical ;
the objects which had to be shown in order to explain the
scene of the event, being firmly outlined, usually on a pure
golden or chequered color background, not on sky. The
change from the golden background, (characteristic of the
finest thirteenth century work) and the colored chequer (which
in like manner belongs to the finest fourteenth) to the blue
sky, gradated to the horizon, takes place early in the fifteenth
century, and is the crisis of change in the spirit of mediaeval
art. Strictly speaking, we might divide the art of Christian
times into two great masses — Symbolic and Imitative; — ^the
symbolic, reaching from the earliest periods down to the close
of the fourteenth century, and the imitative from that close to
the present time ; and, then, the most important circumstance
indicative of the culminating point, or turn of tide, would be
this of the change from chequered background to sky back-
ground. The uppermost figure in Plate 7. opposite, repre-
senting the tree of knowledge, taken from a somewhat late
thirteenth century Hebrew manuscript (Additional 11,639) in
the British Museum, will at once illustrate Mr. Macaulay*s
" serpent turned round the tree," and the mode of introducing
the chequer background, will enable the reader better to
understand the peculiar feeling of the period, which no more
intended the formal walls or streams for an imitative represen-

^ 11^

17. Botany of 13?^ Century.

(Apple -free and Cyclamen .^

^WSP

InUi.of SaronvrfcC*

'■■/ >/ 5"'// ''■■/( A .'■'.>'«

Thr (howrli of Lphtps.

VOL. ni.] . I. THB FORB8T. 209

tation of the Garden of Eden, tbau these chequers for an
imitation of skj.

§ 20. The moment the sky is introduced (and it is curious
how perfectljr it is done at once, many manuscripts presenting,
in alternate pages, chequered backgrounds, and deep blue
skies exquisitely gradated to the horizon) — the moment, I say,
the sky is introduced, the spirit of art becomes for evermore
changed, and thenceforward it gradually proposes imitation
more and more as an end, until it reaches the Turnerian land-
scape. This broad division into two schools would therefore
be the most true and accurate we could employ, but not the
most convenient. For the great mediaeval art lies in a cluster
about the culminating point, including symbolism on one side,
and imitation on the other, and extending like a radiant cloud
upon the mountain peak of ages, partly down both sides of it,
from the year 1200 to 1500 ; the brightest part of the cloud
leaning a little backwards, and poising itself between 1250 and
1350. And therefore the most convenient arrangement is into
Eomanesque and barbaric art, up to 1200, — ^mediseval art, 1200
to 1500, — and modem art, from 1500 downwards. But it is
only in the earlier or symbolic mediaeval art, reaching up to the
close of the fourteenth century, that the peculiar modification
of natural forms for decorative purposes is seen in its perfec-
tion, with all its beauty, ana all its necessary shortcomings ;
the minds of men being accurately balanced between that
honor for the superior human form which they shared with
the Greek ages, and the sentimental love of nature which was
peculiar to their own. The expression of the two feelings will
be found to vary according to the material and place of the
art ; in painting, the conventional forms are more adopted, in
order to obtain definition, and brilliancy of color, while in
sculpture the life of nature is often rendered with a love and
faithfiilness which put modem art to shame. And in this
earnest contemplation of the natural facts, united with an
endeavor to simplify, for clear expression, the results of that
contemplation, the ornamental artists arrived at two abstract
conclusions about form, which ire highly curious and inte-
resting.

§ 21. They saw, first, that a leaf might always be considered

210 or uianMYAL landscape. [far^t tv.

MB a radden expansion of the stem that bore it ; an uncontrolla-
ble expression of delight, on the part of the twig, that spring
bad come, shown in a fountain-like expatiation of its tender
green heart into the air. Thej saw that in this violent pro-
clamation of its delight and liberty, whereas the twig had,
until that moment, a disposition only to grow quietly forwards,
it expressed its satisfaction and extreme pleasure in sunshine
by springing out to right and left. Let a b, Fig. 1. Plate 8., be
the twig growing forward in the direction from a to &• It
reaches the point b, and then — spring coming,*i-not being able
to contain itself, it bursts out in every direction, even springing
backwards at first for joy ; but as this backward cUrection is
contrary to its own proper fate and nature, it cannot go on so
long, and the length of each rib into which it separates is pro-
portioned accurately to the degree in which the proceedings of
that rib are in harmony with the natural destiny of the plant.
Thus the rib c, entirely contradictory, by the direction of his
life and eneigy, of the general intentions to the tree, is but a
short-lived rib; d^ not quite so opposite to his &te, lives
longer ; e, accommodating himself still more to the spirit of
progress, attains a greater length still ; and the largest rib of
all is the one who has not yielded at all to the erratic disposi-
tion of the others when spring came, but, feeling quite as happy
about the spring as they did, nevertheless took no holiday,
minded his business, and grew straightforward.

§ 22. Fig. 6. in the same plate, which shows the disposition
of the ribs in the leaf of an American Plane, exemplifies the
principle very accurately ; it is indeed more notably see^ in
this than in most leaves, because the ribs at the base have evi-
dently had a little &aternal quarrel about their spring holiday ;
and the more gaily -minded ones, getting together into trios on
each side, have rather pooh-poohed and laughed at the seventh
brother in the middle, who wanted to go on regularly, and
attend to his work. Nevertheless, though thus starting quite
by himself in life, this seventh brother, quietly pushing on in
the right direction, lives longest, and makes the largest fortune,
and the triple partnerships on the right and left meet with a
very minor prosperity.

§ 83. Now if we inclose Fig. 1. in Plate 8. with two curves

rou m.]

X. THE TOBBST.

211

passing throngli the extremities of the ribs, we get Fig. 2., the
central type of all leaves. Only this type is modified of coarse
in a thousand ways by the life of the plant. If it be marsh or
aquatic, instead of springing out in twigs, it is almost certain to
expand in soft currents, as the liberated stream does at its mouth
into the ooean. Fig. 3. (Alisma Plantago) ; if it be meant for
one of the crowned and lovely trees of the earth, it will sepa-
rate into stars, and each ray of the leaf will form a ray of light
in the crown, Fig 5. (Horsechestnut) ; and if it be a common-
place tree, rather prudent and practical than imaginative, it will
not expand all at once, but throw out the ribs every now and
then along the central rib, like a merchant taking hia occasional
and restricted holiday, Fig. 4. (Elm).

§ 24. Now in the bud» where all these proceedings on the
leafs part are first imagined, the young leaf is g^ierally (al-
ways 1) doubled up in embryo, so as to present the profile of the
half-leaves, as Fig. 7., only in exquisite complexity of arrange-
ment ; Fig. 9., for instance, is the profile of the leaf-bud of a
rose. Hence the general arrangement of line represented by
Fig. 8. (in which the lower line is slightly curved to express the
bending life in the spine) is everlastingly typical of the ex-
panding powers of joyful vegetative youth ; and it is of all sim-
ple forms the most exquisitely delightful to the human mind.
It presents itself in a thousand different proportions and varia-

FSg.a

1212

OF MEDIJBVAL LAKD8CAPB.

[part IV.

tions in the buds and profiles of leaves ; those being always the
loveliest in which» either by accidental perspective of position,
or inherent character in the tree, it is most frequently presented
to the eye. The branch of bramble, for instance, Fig. 10. at
the bottom of Plate 8., owes its chief beauty to the perpetual
recurrence of this typical form ; and we shall find presently the
enormous importance of it, even in mountain ranges, though, in
these,ya//»n^ force takes the place of vital force.

§ 25. This abstract conclusion the great thirteenth century
artists were the first to arrive at ; and whereas, before their time,
ornament had been constantly refined into intricate and subdi-
vided symmetries, they were content with this simple form as
the termination of its most important features. Fig. 3., which
is a scroll out of a Psalter executed in the latter half of the thir-
teenth century, is a sufficient example of a practice at tliat time
absolutely universal.

§ 26. The second great discovery of the Middle Ages in floral
ornament, was that, in order completely to express the law of
subordination among the leaf-ribs, two ribs were necessary, and
no more, on each side of the leaf, forming a series of three with
the central one, because proportion is between thtee terms at
least.

Kg. 4

That is to say, when they had only three ribs altogether, as

I.dh ofSarony Sb Cr JVe^ /*'/vt,.

Holany of tlie 14*!' CeiLtuiy

From the Prayerbook of Yolanclo of NavriJip.

VOL. III.] I. THE FORSST. 213

a, Fig. 4., no law of relation was discernible between tbe ribsr
or the leaflets thej bore ; but bj the addition of a tbird on each
side, as at by proportion instantly was expressible, whether arith-
metical or geometrical, or 4}f any other kind. Hence the adop-
tion of forms more or less i^proximating to that at c (joung
ivy), or d (wild geranium), as the favorite elements of their
floral ornament, those leaves being, in their disposition of mass-
es, the simplest wh'ch can express a perfect law of proportion,
jnst as the outline Fig. 7. Plate 8. is the simplest which can ex-
press a perfect law of growth.

Plate 9. opposite gives, in mde outline, the arrangement of
the border of one of the pages of a missal in my own posses-
sion, executed for the Countess Yolande of Flanders,* in tbe
lattet half of the fourteenth century, and furnishing, in ex-
haustless variety, the most graceful examples I have ever seen
of the favorite decoration at the period, commonly now known
as the " Ivy leaf " pattern.

§ 27. In thus reducing these two everlasting laws of beauty
to their simplest possible exponents, the mediaeval workmen
were the first to discern and establish the principles of deco-
rative art to the end of time, nor of decorative art merely, but
of mass arrangement in general. For the members of any
great composition, arranged about a centre, are always reduci-
ble to the law of the ivy leaf, the best cathedral entrances
having five porches corresponding in proportional purpose to
its ^YQ lobes (three being an imperfect, and seven a superfluous
number) ; while the loveliest groups of lines attainable in any
pictorial composition are always based on the section of the
leaf-bud. Fig. 7. Plate 8., or on the relation of its ribs to the
convex curve enclosing them.

§ 28. These discoveries of ultimate truth are, I believe,
never made philosophically, but instinctively ; so that wherever
we find a high abstract result of the kind, we may be almost
sure it has been the work of the penetrative imagination, acting
under the influence of strong affection. Accordingly, when we
enter on our botanical inquiries, I shall have occasion to show
with what tender and loving fidelity to nature the masters of

' * Married to Philip, younger son of the King of Navarre, in 1352. She
died in 1394.

214 OF MXDIJEYAX. LAKDSOAPS. [piiBT TV.

the tbirteentb century always traced tbe leading lines of their
decorationst either in missal-painting or scnlptore, and how
totally in this respect their methods of suhdoing, for the sake
of distinctness, the natural forms they loved so dearly, differ
from the iron formalisms to which the Greeks, careless of all
that was not completely divine or completely hnman, reduced
the thorn of the acanthus, and softness of the lily* Never-
theless, in all this perfect and loving decorative art, we have
hardly any careful references to other landscape features than
herhs and flowers ; mountains, water, and clouds are introduced
BO rudely, that the representations of them can never he
received for anything else than letters or signs. Thus the
sign of clouds, in the thirteenth century, is an undulating
hand, usually in painting, of hlue edged with white, in sculp*
ture, wrought so as to resemble very nearly the folds of a cnr<
tain closely tied, and understood for clouds only by its position,
as surrounding angels or saints in heaven, opening to souls
ascending at the Last Judgment, or forming canopies over the
Saviour or the Yirpn. Water is represented by eigiag lines,
nearly resembling those employed for clouds, but distinguished,
in sculpture, by having fish in it ; in painting, both by fish and
a more continuous blue or green color. And when these un-
varied symbols are associated under the influence of that love
of firm fence, moat, and every other means of definition which
we have seen to be one of the prevailing characteristics of the
mediaeval mind, it is not possible for us to conceive, through
the rigidity of the signs employed, what were the real feelings
of the workman or spectator about the natural landscape. We
see that the thing carved or painted is not intended in any
wise to imitate the truth, or convey to us the feelings which
the workman had in ccmtemplating the truth, fie has got a
way of talking about it so definite and cold, and telb us with
his chisel so ealmly that the knight had a castle to attack, or
the saint a river to cross dryshod, without making the smallest
effort to describe pietorially either castle or river, that we are
left wholly at fault as to the nature of the emotion with which
he contemplated the real objects. But that emotion, as the
intermediate step between the feelings of the Grecian and the.
Modern, it must be our aim to ascertain as clearly as possible ;

VOL. UI.] I. THX rOBSST. 215

and» tHerefore* fiadiag H not at this period completely exprefised
in visible art, we mast, as we did with tke Greeks, take ap the
written landscape instead, and examine this mediaeval senti-
ment as we £nd it embodied in the poem of Dante.

§ 29, The thing that must first strike us in this respect, as
we turn our thoughts to the poem, is, unquestionably, the
formcdity of its landscape.

Milton's effort, in all that he tells us of his Inferno, is to
make it indefinite ; Dante's, to make it definite. Both, indeed,
describe it as entered through gates ; but, within the gate, all
is wild and fenceless with Milton, having indeed its four rivers,
— the last vestige of the mediaeval tradition, — but rivers which
flow through a waste of mountain and moorland, and bj ** manj
a frozen, manj a fiery Alp." Bat Dante's Inferno is accurately
separated into circles drawn with well-pointed compasses;
mapped and properly surveyed in every direction, trenched in
a thoroughly good style of engineering from depth to depth,
and divided in the ** accurate middle'' (dritto mezzo) of its
deepest abyss, into a concentric series often moats and embank-
ments, like those about a castle, with bridges from each em-
bankment to the next ; precisely in the manner of those bridges
over Hiddekel and Euphrates, which Mr. Maeanlay thinks so
innocently designed, apparently not aware that he is also
laughing at Dante. These lai^er fosses are of rock, and the
bridges also ; but as he goes further into detail, Dante tells us
of various minor fosses and embankments, in which he
anxiously points out to us not only the formality, but the neat-
ness and perfectness, of the stonework. For instance, in
describing the river Phlegethon, he tells us that it was ** paved
with stone at the bottom, and at the sides, and over the edges
of tke sides f** just as the water is at the baths of Bolicame ; and
for fear we should think this embankment at all larger than it
really was, Dante adds, carefully, that it was made just like
the embankments <^ Ghent or Bruges agmnst the sea, or those
in Lombardy which bank the Brenta, only ** not so high, nor
so wide," as aay of these. And besides the trenches, we have
two well-built castles i one like Ecbatana, with seven circuits of
wall (and surrounded by a fair stream), wherein the great poets
and sages of antiquity live ; and another, a great fortified city

210 OF MEDIJETAL LANDSCAPE. [PABT lY.

with walls of iron, red-hot, and a deep fosse round it, and full
of " grave citizens," — ^the city of Dis.

§ 30. Now, whether this be in what we modems call " good
taste," or not, I do not mean just now to inquire — Dante hav-
ing nothing to do with taste, but with the facts of what he had
seen ; onlj, so far as the imaginative faculty of the two poets
is concerned, note that Milton's vagueness is not the sign of
imagination, but of its absence, so far as it is significative in the
matter. For it does not follow, because Milton did not map
out his Inferno as Dante did, that he cotdd not have done so if
he had chosen ; only, it was the easier and less imaginative
process to leave it vague than to define it. Imagination is
always the seeing and asserting faculty ; that which obscures
or conceals may be judgment, or feeling, but not invention.
The invention, whether good or bad, is in the accurate
engineering, not in the fog and uncertainty.

§ 31. When we pass with Dante from the Inferno to Purga-
tory, we have indeed more light and air, but no more liberty ;
being now confined on various ledges cut into a mountain side,
with a precipice on one hand ai|d a vertical wall on the other ;
and, lest here also we should make any mistake about magni-
tudes, we are told that the ledges were eighteen feet wide,*
and that the ascent from one to the other was by steps, made
like those which go up from Florence to the church of San
Minieto.t

Lastly, though in the Paradise there is perfect freedom and
infinity of space, though for trenches we have planets, and for
cornices constellations, yet there is more cadence, procession,
and order among the redeemed souls than any others ; they
fly, so as to describe letters and sentences in the air, and rest
in circles, like rainbows, or determinate figures, as of a cross
and an eagle ; in which certain of the more glorified natures
are so arranged as to form the eye of the bird, while those most
highly blessed are arranged with their white crowds in leaflets,
so as to form the image of a white rose in the midst of heaven.

§ 32. Thus, throughout the poem, I conceive that the first
striking character of its scenery is intense definition ; precisely

♦ " Three times the length of a human body." — Purg. x. 24.
t Parg. xii. 102.

VOL. III.] I. THE FOREST. 217

the reflection of that definiteness which we have already traced
in pictorial art. But the second point which seems noteworthy
is, that the flat ground and embanked trenches are reserved for
the Inferno ; aind that the entire territory of the Purgatory is
a mountain, thus marking the sense of that purifying and per-
fecting influence in mountains which we saw the mediaeval mind
was so ready to suggest. The same general idea is indicated
at the very commencement of the poem, in which Dante is
overwhelmed by fear and sorrow in passing through a dark
forest, but revives on seeing the sun touch the top of a hill,
afterwards called by Virgil ** the pleasant mount — the cause
and source of all delight."

§ 33. While, however, we find this greater honor paid to
mountains, I think we may perceive a much greater dread and
dislike of woods. We saw that Homer seemed to attach a
pleasant idea, for the most part, to forests ; regarding them
as sources of wealth and places of shelter ; and we find con-
stantly an idea of sacredness attached to them, as being haiinted
especially by the gods ; so that even the wood which surrounds
the house of Circe is spoken of as a sacred thicket, or rather,
as a sacred glade, or labyrinth of glades (of the particular
word used I shall have more to say presently) ; and so the
wood is sought as a kindly shelter by Ulysses, in spite of its
wild beasts ; and evidently regarded with great affection by
Sophocles, for, in a passage which is always regarded by read-
ers of Greek tragedy with peculiar pleasure, the aged and
blind CEdipus, brought to rest in " the sweetest resting-place "
in all the neighborhood of Athens, has the spot described to
him as haunted perpetually by nightingales, which sing " in the
green glades and in the dark ivy, and in the thousand-fruited,
sunless, and windless thickets of the god " (Bacchus) ; the idea
of the complete shelter from wind and sun being here, as with
Ulysses, the uppermost one. After this come the usual staples
of landscape, — ^narcissus, crocus, plenty of rain, olive trees ;
and last, and the greatest boast of all, — " it is a good country
for horses, and conveniently by the sea ;" but the prominence
and pleasantness of the thick wood in the thoughts of the writer
are very notable ; whereas to Dante the idea of a forest is
exceedingly repulsive, so that, as just noticed, in the opening

VOL. III. 10

218 OF MEDIwBVAL LANDSCAPE. [PART IV.

of hiB poem, lie cannot express a general despair about life more
stronglj than bj sajing he was lost in a wood so savaji^e and
terrible, that " even to think or speak of it is distress, — ^it was
so bitter, — ^it was something next door to death ;" and one of
the saddest scenes in all the Inferno is in a forest, of which the
trees are hannted by lost souls ; while (with onlj one excep«
tion,) whenever the country is to be beautiful, we find ourselvea
coming out into open air and open meadows.

It is quite true that this is partly a characteristic, not merely
of Dante, or of mediseval writers, but of so'Uh-'m writers ; for
the simple reason that the forest, being with them higher upon
the hills, and more out of the way than in the north was gene*
rally a type of lonely and savage places ; while in England,
the '' greenwood,'' coming up to the very walls of the towns, it
was possible to be *< merry in the good greenwood," in a sense
which an Italian could not have understood. Hence Chaucer,
Spenser, and Shakspcre send their favorites perpetually to
the woods for pleasure or meditation ; and trust their tender
Ganace, or Rosalind, or Helena, or Bllvia, or Belphcebe, where
Dante would have sent no one but a condemned spirit Never-
theless, there is always traceable in the mediaeval mind a dread
of thick foliage, which was not present to that of a Greek $ so
that, even in the north, we have our sorrowful " children in the
wood," and black huntsmen of the Hartz forests, and such
other wood terrors ; the principal reason for the difference
being that a Greek, being by no means given to travelling,
regarded his woods as so much valuable property ; and if he
ever went into them for pleasnre expected to meet one or two
gods in the course of his walk, but no banditti ; while a medi-
aeval, much more of a solitary traveller, and expecting to meet
with no gods in the thickets, but only with thieves, or a hostile
ambush, or a bear, besides a great deal of troublesome ground
for his horse, and a very serious chance, next to a certainty,
of losing his way, naturally kept in the open ground as long
as he could, and regarded the forests, in general, with anything
^ut an eye of favor.

§ 34, These, I think, are the principal points which must
strike us, when we first broadly think of the poem as compared
with classical work. Let us now go a little more hi to detail.

i./v

'il

J r

.10- ,

3 S[reriglli of Old Fine.

VOL. in.] I. THE FOREST. 219

As Homer gave us an ideal landscape, which even a god
might have heen pleased to hehold, so Dante gives us, fortu-
nately, an ideal landscape, which is specially intended for the
terrestrial paradise. And it will doubtless be with some sur*-
prise, after our reflections above on the general tone of Dante's
feelings, that we find ourselves here first entering a forest^ and
that even a thick forest. But there is a peculiar meaning in
this. With any other poet than Dante, it might have been
regarded as a wanton inconsistency. Not so with him : by
glancing back to the two lines which explain the nature of
Paradise, we shall see what he means by it. Virgil tells him,
as he enters it, "Henceforward, take thine own pleasure for
guide ; thou art beyond the steep ways, and beyond all Art ;"
— meaning, that the perfectly purified and noble human crea-
ture, having no pleasure but in right, is past all effort, and past
all rule. Art has no existence for such a being. Hence, the
first aim of Dante, in his landscape imagery, is to show evi-
dence of this perfect liberty, and of the purity and sinlessness
of the new nature, converting pathless ways into happy ones.
So that all those fences and formalisms which had been needed
for him in imperfection, are removed in this paradise ; and even
the pathlessness of the wood, the most dreadful thing possible
to him in his days of sin and shortcoming, is now a joy to him
in his days of purity. And as the fencclessness and thicket of
sin led to the fettered and fearful order of eternal punishment,
so the fencclessness and thicket of the free virtue lead to the
loving and constellated order of eternal happiness.

§ 35. This forest, then, is very like that of Colonos in seve-
ral respects — ^in its peace and sweetness, and number of birds ;
it differs from it only in letting a light breeze through it, being
therefore somewhat thinner than the Greek wood ; the tender
lines which tell of the voices of the birds mingling with the
wind, and of the leaves all turning one way before it, have
been more or less copied by evei:y poet since Dante's time.
They are, so far as I know, the sweetest passage of wood
description which exists in literature.

Before, however, Dante has gone far in this wood, — that is
to say, only so far as to have lost sight of the place wLere he
entered it, or rather, I suppose, of the light under the boughs

220 OF MEDIiBVAL LAND8CAP«, [PART IV.

of the outside trees, and it must have been a very thin wood
indeed if he did not do this in some quarter of a mile's walk, —
he comes to a little river, three paces over, which bends the
blades of grass- to the left, with a meadow on the other side of
it ; and in this meadow

A Udy, graced with solitude, who went

Singing, and setting flower by flower apart,
By which the path she walked on was besprent
* Ah, lady beaatifnl, that basking art

In beams of love, if I may trust thy face,
Which nseth to bear witness of the heart.
Let liking come on thee/ said I, ' to trace

Hiy path a little closer to the shore,
Where I may reap the hearing of thy layiL
Thou mindest me, how Proserpine of yore

Appeared in such a place, what time her mother
Lost her, and she the spring, for eyermore.'
As, pointing downwards and to one another

Her feet, a lady bendeth in the dance,
And barely setteth one before the other,
Thus, on the scarlet and the safiron glance

Of flowers, with motion maidenlike she bent
(Her modest eyelids drooping and askance) ;
And there she gave my wishes their content,

Approaching, so that her sweet melodies
Arrived upon mine ear with what they meant
When first she came amongst the blades, that rise,

Already wetted, from the goodly river.
She graced me by the lifting of her eyes." (Catlet.)

§ 36. I have given this passage at length, because, for our
purposes, it is by much the most important, not only in Dante,
but in the whole circle of poetry. This lady, observe, stands
on the opposite side of the little stream, which, presently, she
explains to Dante is Lethe, having power to cause forgetfulness
of all evil, and she stands just among the bent blades of grass
at its edge. She is first seen gathering flower from flower,
then "passing continually the multitudinous flowers through
her hands," smiling at the same time so brightly, that her first
address to Dante is to prevent him from wondering at her,
saying, « if he will remember the verse of the ninety-second

VOL. in.] I. THE rOREST, 221

Psalm, beginning * Delectasti,' he will know why she is so
happy."

And turning to the verse of the Psalm, we find it written,
" Thou, Lord, hast made me glad through Thy works, I will
triumph in the works of Thy hands ;** or, in the very words in
which Dante would read it, —

" Qaia delectasti me, Domine, in factura tna,
Et in operibus manuum Tuarum erultabo.*

§ 37. Now we could not for an instant have had any diffi-
culty in understanding this, but that, some way farther on in
the poem, this lady is called Matilda, and it is with reason sup-
posed by the commentators to be the great Countess Matilda
of the eleventh century ; notable equally for her ceaseless
activity, her brilliant political genius, her perfect piety, and
her deep reverence for the see of Eome. This Countess Ma-
tilda is therefore Dante's guide in the terrestrial paradise, as
Beatrice is afterwards in the celestial ; each of them having a
spiritual and symbolic character in their glorified state, yet
retaining their definite personality.

The question is, then, what is the symbolic character of the
Countess Matilda, as the guiding spirit of the terrestrial para-
dise? Before Dante had entered this paradise he had rested
on a step of shelving rock, and as he watched the stars he
slept, and dreamed, and thus tells us what he saw : —

*' A lady, young and beautifol, I dreamed.
Was passing o'er a lea ; and, as she came,
Methought I saw her ever and anon
Bending to cull the flowers ; and thus she sang:

* Know ye, whoever of my name would ask.
That I am Leah ; for my brow to weave
A garland, these &ir hands unwearied ply ;
To please me at the /crystal mirror, here
I deck me. But my sister Rachel, she
Before her glass abides the livelong day.
Her radiant eyes beholding, charmed no less
Than I with this delightful task. Her joy
In contemplation, as in labor mine.* "

This vision of Rachel and Leah has been always, and with

222 OF MSDL£VAL ULNDSCAPB. [pA&T IV.

nnqnestionable truth, received as a type of the Active and
Contemplative life, and as an introduction to the two divisions
of the paradise which Dante is about to enter. Therefore the
unwearied spirit of the Countess Matilda is understood to repre-
sent the Active life, which forms the felicity of £arth ; and the
spirit of Beatrice the Contemplative life, which forms the feli-
city of Heaven. This interpretation appears at first straight-
forward and certain ; but it has missed count of exactly the
most important fact in the two passages which we have to
explain. Observe : Leah gathers the flowers to decorate her-
gelf, and delights in Her Onm Labor. Rachel sits silent, con-
templating herself, and delights in Her Own Image. These
are the types of the Unglorified Active and Contemplative
powers of Man. But Beatrice and Matilda are the same powers,
Glorified. And how are they Glorified ] Leah took delight
in her own labor ; but Matilda — " in operibus manuum Tua-
ram'* — in God's labor : Eachel in the sight of her own face ;
Beatrice in the sight of God's /ace.

§ 38. And thus, when afterwards Dante sees Beatrice on her
throne, and prays her that, when he himself shall die, she
would receive him with kindness, Beatrice merely looks down
for an instant, and answers with a single smile, then " towards
the eternal fountain turns." •

Therefore it is evident that Dante distinguishes in both
cases, not between earth and heaven, but between perfect and
imperfect happiness, whether in earth or heaven. The active
life which has only the service of man for its end, and there-
fore gathers flowers, with Leah, for its own decoration, is
indeed happy, but not perfectly so ; it has only the happiness
of the dream, belonging essentially to the dream of human life,
and passing away with it. But the active life which labors for
the more anJ more discovery of God*s work, is perfectly
happy, and is the life of the terrestrial paradise, being a true
foretaste of heaven, and beginning in earth, as heaven's vesti-
bule. So also the contemplative life which is concerned with
human feeling and thought and beauty — ^the life which is in
earthly poetry and imagery of noble earthly emotion — is happy,
but it is the happiness of the dream ; the contemplative life
which has God's person and love in Christ for its object, has

VOL. III.] 1. THE FOREST. 223

the happiness of eternity. But because this higher happiness
is also begun here on earth, Beatrice descends to earth ; and
\srhen revealed to Dante lirst, he sees the image of the twofold
personality of Christ reflected in her et/es ; as the flowers,
which are, to the mediaBval heart, the chief work of God, are
for ever passing through Matilda's /urnds.

§ 39. Now, therefore, we see that Dante, as the great
] rophetic exponent of the heart of the Middle Ages, has, by
the lips of tlic spirit of Matilda, declai'ed the mediseval faith, —
that all perfect active life was " tLe expression of man's delight
in Grades tpork;*' and that all their political and warlike energy,
as fully shown in the mortal life of Matilda, was yet inferior
and impure, — the energy of the dream,— -compared with that
which on the opposite bank of Lethe stood " choosing flower
from flower.** And what joy and peace there were in this
work is marked by Matilda's being the person who draws
Dante through the stream of Lethe, so as to make him forget
all sin, and all sorrow: throwing her arms round him, she
plunges his head under the waves of it; then draws him
through, crying to him, ** /lold me, hold me'^ (tiemmi, tiemmi),
and 80 presents him, thus bathed, free from all painful
memory, at the feet of the spirit of the more heavenly
contemplation.

§ 40. The reader will, I think, now see, witli sufficient dis-
tinctness, why I called this passage the most important, for our
present purposes, in the whole circle of poetry. For it con-
tains the flrst great confession of the discovery by the human
race (I mean as a matter of experience, not of revelation), that
their happiness was not in themselves, and that their labor was
not to have their own service as its chief end. It embodies in a
few syllables the sealing difference between the Greek and the
mediaeval, in that the former sought the flower and herb for his
own uses, th« latter for God's honor ; the former, primarily and
on principle, contemplated his own beauty and the workings
of his own mind, and the latter, primarily and on principle, con-
templated Christ's beauty, and the workings of the mind of
Christ.

§ -tl. I will not at present follow up this subject any farther ;
it being enough that we have thus got to the root of it,

224 OF MEDIiGVAL LANDSCAPE. [PART IV.

and have a great declaration of tlie central mediseval purpose,
whereto we maj return for solution of all future questions. I
would only, therefore, desire the reader now to. compare the
Stones of Venice, vol. i. chap. xx. §§ 15. 16. ; the Seven Lamps
of Architecture, chap. iv. § 3. ; and the second volume of this
work, Chap. ii. §§ 9. 10., and Chap. iii. § 10. ; that he may, in
these several places, observe how gradually our conclusions
are knitting themselves together as we are able to determine
more and more of the successive questions that come before us :
and, finally, to compare the two interesting passages in Words-
worth, which, without any memory of Dante, nevertheless, as
if by some special ordaining, describe in matters of modern
life exactly the soothing or felicitous powers of the two active
spirits of Dante-^Leah and Matilda, Excursion, book v. line
608. to 625., and book vi. line 102. to 214.

§ 42. Having thus received from Dante this great lesson, as
to the spirit in which mediaeval landscape is to be understood,
what else we have to note respecting it, as seen in his
poem, will be comparatively straightforward and easy. And
first, we have to observe the place occupied in his mind by
color. It has already been shown, in the Stones of Venice, vol.
ii. chap. V. §§ 30 — 34., that color is the most sacred element of
all visible things. Hence, as the mediaeval mind contemplated
them first for their sacredness, we should, beforehand, expect
that the first thing it would seize would be the color ; and that
we should find its expressions and renderings of color infinitely
more loving and accurate than among the Greeks.

§ 43. Accordingly, the Greek sense of color seems to have
been so comparatively dim and uncertain, that it is almost im-
possible to ascertain what the real idea was which they attached
to any word alluding to hue : and above all, color, though
pleasant to their eyes, as to those of all human beings, seems
never to have been impressive to their feelings. They liked
purple, on the whole, the best ; but there was no sense of
cheerfulness or pleasantness in one color, and gloom in another,
such as the mediae vals had.

For instance, when Achilles goes, in great anger and sorrow,
to complain to Thetis of the scorn done him by Agamemnon,
the sea appeai-s to him " wine-colored.'* One might think this

VOL, in.] I. THE F0RS8T. 225

meant that the sea looked dark and reddish-purple to him, in a
kind of sympathy with his anger. But we turn to the passage
of Sophocles, which has heen above quoted — a passage peculiarly
intended to express peace and rest — and we find that the birds
sing among " wine-colored " ivy. The uncertainty of conception
of the hue itself, and entire absence of expressive character in
the word, could hardly be more clearly manifested.

§ 44. Again : I said the Greek liked purple, as a general
source of enjoyment, better than any other color. So he did ;
and so all healthy persons who have eye for color, and are un-
prejudiced about it, do ; and will to the end of time, for a reason
presently to be noted. But so far was this instinctive preference
for purple from giving, in the Greek mind, any consistently
cheerful or sacred association to the color, that Homer constant-
ly calls death ** purple death."

§ 45. Again : in the passage of Sophocles, so often spoken of,
I said there was some difficulty respecting a word often trans-
lated '' thickets." I believe, myself, it means glades ; literally,
" going places " in the woods, — that is to say, places where,
either naturally or by force, the trees separate, so as to give
some accessible avenue. Now, Sophocles tells us the birds
sang in these ** green going places;" and we take up the
expression gratefully, thinking the old Greek perceived and
enjoyed, as we do, the sweet fall of the eminently green light
through the leaves when they are a little thinner than in the
heart of the wood. But we turn to the tragedy of Ajax, and
are much shaken in our conclusion about the meaning of the
word, when we are told that the body of Aym is to lie un-
buried, and be eaten by sea-birds on the "o' ^<^" sand." The
formation, geologically distinguished by that title, was certainly
not known to Sophocles ; and the only conclusion which, it
seems to me, we can come to under the circumstances, —
assuming Ariel's* authority as to the color of pretty sand,
and the ancient mariner's (or, rather, his hearer's t) as to the
color of ugly sand, to be conclusive, — is that Sophocles really
did not know green from yellow or brown.

* *•■ Come Tinto these yellow sanda.**
f ** And thou art long, And lank, and broton.
As is the ribbed sea sand.**
- 1C»

226 OF HSDIJSVAL LANDBCAPB. [pART lY.

§ 46. Now, without going out of the terrestrial paradise, in
which Dante last left us, we shall be able at once to compare
With this Greek incertitude the precision of the mediseyal eye
for color. Some three arrowfiights further up into the wood
we come to a tall tree, which is at first barren, but, after some
little time, visiblj opens into flowers, of a color ** less than that
of roses, but more than that of violets."

It certainly would not be possible, in words, to come nearer
to the definition of the exact hue which Dante meant — that of
the apple-blossom. Had he employed any simple color-phrase,
as a *' pale pink," or '' violet-pink," or any other such combined
expression, he still could not have completely got at the deli-
cacy of the hue ; he might perhaps have indicated its kind,
but not its tenderness ; but by taking the rose-leaf as the type
of the delicate red, and then enfeebling this with the violet
grey, he gets, as closely as language can carry him, to the
complete rendering oi the vision, though it is evidently felt by
him to be in its perfect beauty ineffable ; and rightly so felt,
for of all lovely things which grace the spring time in our fair
temperate zone, I am not sure but this blossoming of the
apple-tree is the fairest At all events, I find it associated in
my mind with four other kinds of color, certainly principal
among the gifts of the northern earth, namely :

1st. Bell gentians growing close together, mixed with lilies of
the valley, on the Jura pastures.

2nd. Alpine roses with dew upon them, under low rays of
morning sunshine, touching the tops of the flowers.

3rd. Bell heather in mass, in full light, at sunset.

4th. White narcissus (red-centred) in mass, on the Vevay pas-
tures, in sunshine, after rain.

And I know not where in ,.ne group to place the wreaths of
apple-blossoms, in the Vevay m-chards, with the far-off blue of
the lake of Geneva seen between the flowers.

A Greek, however, would have regarded this blossom simply
with the eyes of a Devonshire farmer, as bearing on the pro-
bable price of cider, and would have called it red, cerulean.

VOL. lU*] I. THB F0BX8T. 227

purple, wliite, lijacintbine, or generally ''aglaos/' agreeable,
as happened to suit his verse.

§ 47. Again : we have seen how fond the Greek was of
composing his paradises of rather damp grass ; but that in this
fondness for grass there was always an undercurrent of con-
sideration for his horses; and the characters in it which
pleased him most were its depth and freshness ; not its color.
Now, if we remember carefully the general expressions, re-
specting grass, used in modem literature, I think nearly the
commonest that occurs to us will be that of ** enamelled ** turf
or sward. This phrase is usually employed by our pseudo-
poets, like all their other phrases, without knowing what it
means, because it has been used by other writers before them,
and because they do not know what else to say of grass. If
we were to ask them what enamel was, they could not tell us ;
and if we asked why grass was like enamel, they could not
tell us. The expression has a meaning, however, and one pe-
culiarly characteristic of mediaeval and modern temper.

§ 48. The first instance I know of its right use, though very
probably it had been so employed before, % in Dante. The
righteous spirits of the pre-Christian ages are seen by him,
though in the Inferno, yet in a place open, luminous, and high,
walking upon the " green enamel."

I am very sure that Dante did not use this phrase as we use
it. He knew well what enamel was ; and his readers, in order
to understand him thoroughly, must remember what it^is, — a
vitreous paste, dissolved in water, mixed with metallio oxides,
to give it the opacity and the color required, spread in a moist
state on metal, and afterwards hardened by fire, so as never to
change. And Dante means, in using this metaphor of the
grass of the Inferno, to mark, that it is laid as a tempering
and cooling substance over the dark, metallic, gloomy ground ;
but yet so hardened by the fire, that it is not any more ^sh
or living grass, but a smooth, silent, lifeless bed of eternal
green. And we know how hard Dante's idea of it was ; be-
cause afterwards, in what is perhaps the most awful passage
of the whole Inferno, when the three furies rise at the top of
the burning tower, and catching sight of Dante, and not being
able to get at him, shriek wildly for the Gorgon to come up

228 OF MBDIJCVAL LANDBCAPE. [pART IV.

too, that they maj turn him into stone, — ^the word stone is not
hard enough for them. Stone might cramhle away after it
was made, or something with life might grow upon it ; no, it
shall not he stone ; they will make enamel of him ; nothing
can grow out of that ; it is dead for ever.*

" Venga Medusa, si lo farem di Smdlto.^

§ 49. Now, almost in the opening of the Purgatory, as
there at the entrance of the Inferno, we find a company of
great ones resting in a grassy place. But the idea of the grass
now is very different. The word now used is not ** enamel,"
hut " herb," and instead of being merely green, it is covered
with flowers of many colors. With the usual mediaeval accu-
racy, Dante insists on telling us precisely what these colors
were, and how bright ; which he does by naming the actual
pigments used in illumination, — "Gold, and fine silver, and
cochineal, and white lead, and Indian wood, serene and lucid,
and firesh emerald, just broken, would have been excelled, as
less is by greater, by the flowers and grass of the place." It
is evident that the " emerald " here means the emerald green
of the illuminators ; for a fresh emerald is no brighter than one
which is not fresh, and Dante was not one to throw away his
words thus. Observe, then, we have here the idea of the
growth, life, and variegation of the "green herb," as op-
posed to the smalto of the Inferno; but the colors of the
variegation are illustrated and defined by the reference to
actual pigments; and, observe, because the other colors are
rather bright, the blue ground (Indian wood, indigo?) is sober;
lucid, but serene ; and presently two angels enter, who are
dressed in green drapery, but of a paler green than the grass,
which Dante marks, by telling us that it was " the green of
leaves just budded."

§ 50. In all this, I wish the reader to observe two things :
first, the general carefulness of the poet in defining color,
distinguishing it precisely as a painter would (opposed to the
Greek carelessness about it) ; and, secondly, his regarding the

* Compare parallel passage, making Dante hard or changeless in good,
Turg. viil 114.

VOL. in.] I. THE FOREST. 229

grass for its greenness and variegation, rather than, as a Greek
would have done, for its depth and freshness. This greenness
or brightness, and variegation, are taken up by later and
modem poets, as the things intended to be chiefly expressed by
the word " enamelled f* and, gradually, the term is taken to
indicate any kind of bright and interchangeable coloring ;
there being always this much of propriety about it, when used
of greensward, that such sward is indeed, like enamel, a coat of
bright color on a comparatively dark ground ; and is thus a
sort of natural jewelry and painter's work, diflFerent from loose
and large vegetation. The word is often awkwardly and
falsely used, by the later poets, of all kinds of growth and
color ; as by Milton of the flowers of Paradise showing them-
selves over its wall ; but it retains, nevertheless, through all its
jaded inanity, some half-unconscious vestige of the old sense,
even to the present day.

§ 51. There are, it seems to me, several important deductions
to be made from these facts. The Greek, we have seen, de-
lighted in the grass for its usefulness ; the mediaeval, as also
we modems, for its color and beauty. But both dwell on it
as the^r*^ element of the lovely landscape ; we saw its use in
Homer, we see also that Dante thinks the righteous spirits of
the heathen enough comforted in I^ades by having even the
image of green grass put beneath their feet ; the happy resting-
place in Purgatory has no other delight than its grass and
flowers; and, finally, in the terrestrial paradise, the feet of
Matilda pause where the Lethe stream first bends the blades
of grass. Consider a little what a depth there is in this great
instinct of the human race. Gather a single blade of grass,
and examine for a minute, quietly, its narrow sword-shaped
strip of fluted green. Nothing, as it seems there, of notable
goodness or beauty. A very little strength, and a very little
tallness, and a few delicate long lines meeting in a point,— not
a perfect point neither, but blunt and unfinished, by no means
a creditable or apparently much cared for example of Nature's
workmanship ; made, as it seems, only to be trodden on to-
day, and to-morrow to be cast into the oven ; and a little pale
and hollow stalk, feeble and flaccid, leading down to the dull
brown fibres of roots. And yet, think of it well, and judge

280 OF UKBIMVAL LANDSCAPK. [fABT ZV.

whether of all the gorgeous flowers that beam in sammer air,
and of all strong and goodly trees, pleasant to the eyes and
good for food, — stately palm and pine, strong ash and oak,
scented citron, burdened vine, — ^there be any bj man so deeply
loved, by God so highly graced, as that narrow point of feeble
green. It seems to me not to have been without a peculiar
significance, that our Lord, when about to work the miracle
which, of all that He showed, appears to have been felt by the
multitude as the most impressive, — the miracle of the loaves, —
commanded the people to sit down by companies " upon the
green grass." He was about to feed them with the principal
produce of earth and the sea, the simplest representations of
the food of mankind. He gave them the seed of the herb ; He
bade them sit down upon the herb itself, which was as great a
gift, in its fitness for their joy and rest, as its perfect fruit, for
their sustenance; thus, in this single order and act, when
rightly understood, indicating for evermore how the Creator
had entrusted the comfort, consolation, and sustenance of man,
to the simplest and most despised of all the leafy families of the
e<arth. And well does it fulfil its mission. Consider what we
owe merely to the meadow grass, to the covering of the dark
ground by that glorious enamel, by the companies of those soft,
and countless, and peaceful spears. The fields ! Follow but
forth for a little time the thoughts of all that we ought to
recognise in those words. All spring and summer is in them,
— the walks by silent, scented paths, — the rests in noonday
heat, — the joy of herds and flocks, — the power of all shepherd
life and meditation, —the life of sunlight upon the world, falling
in emerald streaks, and failing in soft blue shadows, where else
it would have struck upon the dark mould, or scorching dust,
— pastures beside the pacing brooks, — soft banks and knolls of
lowly hills, — ^thymy slopes of down overlooked by the blue line
of lifted sea,-— crisp lawns all dim with early dew, or smooth in
evening warmth of barred sunshine, dinted by happy feet, and
softening in their fall the sound of loving voices : all these are
summed in those simple words ; and these are not all. We
may not measure to the full the depth of this heavenly gift, in
our own land ; though stiU, as we think of it longer, the
infinite of that meadow sweetness, Shakspere's peculiar joy.

TOL. in.]

I. THE TqRE&T.

231

would open on ns more and more, yet we have it but in part.
Go out, in the spring time, among the meadows that slope from
the shores of the Swiss lakes to the roots of their lower moun-
tains. There, mingled with the taller gentians and the white
narcissus, the grass gi*ows deep and free ; and as you follow
the winding mountain paths, beneath arching boughs all veiled
and dim with blossom, — paths that for ever droop and rise over
the green banks and mounds sweeping down in scented un-
dulation, steep to the blue water, studded here and there with
new mown heaps, filling all the air with fainter sweetness,-r-
look up towards the higher hills, where the waves of ever-
lasting green roll silently into their long inlets among the
shadows of the pines ; and we may, perhaps, at last know the
meaning of those quiet words of the 147th Psalm, " He maketh
grass to grow upon the mountains."

§ 52, There are also several lessons symbolically connected
with this subject, which we must not allow to escape us. Ob-
serve, the peculiar characters of the grass, which adapt it
especially for the service of man, are its apparent humiliij/,
and cheerfulness. Its humility, in that it seems created only
for lowest service, — appointed to be trodden on, and fed upon.
Its cheerfulness, in j;hat it seems to exult under all kinds of
violence and suffering. You roll it, and it is stronger the next
day ; you mow it, and it multiplies its shoots, as if it were
grateful ; you tread upon it, and it only sends up richer per-
fume. Spring comes, and it rejoices with all the earth, —
glowing with variegated flame of flowers, — waving in soft
depth of fruitful strength. Winter comes, and though it will
not mock its fellow plants by growing then, it will not pine
and mourn, and turn colorless or leafless as they. It is always
green ; and is only the brighter and gayer for the hoar-frost.

§ 53. Now, these two characters— of humility, and joy under
trial — are exactly those which most definitely distinguish the
Christian from the Pagan spirit. Whatever virtue the pagan
possessed was rooted in pride, and fruited with sorrow. It
began in the elevation of his own nature ; it ended but in the
" verde smalto " — the hopeless green — of the Elysian fields.
But the Christian virtue is rooted in self-debasement, and
strengthened under suffering by gladness of hope. And re-

'>P

'-. *

■i>^

;

232 OF MEDIiSyAL LAKDBOAPK. [PABT IV.

membering this, it is carious to observe bow utterly without
gladness the Greek heart appears to be in watching the flower-
ing grass, and what strange discords of expression arise some-
times in consequence. There is one, recurring once or twice
in Homer, which has always pained me. He says, " the Greek
army was on the fields, as thick as flowers in the spring/' It
might be so ; but flowers in spring time are not the image by
which Dante would have numbered soldiers on their path of
battle. Dante could not have thonght of the flowering of the
grass but as associated with happiness. There is a still deeper
significance in the passage quoted, a little while ago, from
Homer, describing Ulysses casting himself down on the rusJies
and the corn-giving land at the river shore, — the rushes and
com being to him only good for rest and sustenance, — when
we compare it with that in which Dante tells us he was
ordered to descend to the shore of the lake as he entered
Purgatory, to gather a rrtshf and gird himself with it, it being
to him the emblem not only of rest, but of humility under
chastisement, the rush (or reed) being the only plant which
can grow there ; — " no plant which bears leaves, or hardens its
bark, can live on that shore, because it does not yield to the
chastisement of its waves." It cannot but strike the reader
singularly how deep and harmonious a significance runs
through all these words of Dante— haw every syllable of
them, the more we penetrate it, becomes a seed of farther
thought ! For, follow up this image of the girding with the
reed, under trial, and see to whose feet it will lead us. As the
grass of the earth, thought of as the herb yielding seed, leads
us to the place where our Lord commanded the multitude to
sit down by companies upon the green grass ; so the grass of
the waters, thought of as sustaining itself among the waters
of affliction, leads us to the place where a stem of it was put
into our Lord's hand for his sceptre; and in the crown of
thorns, and the rod of reed, was foreshown the everlasting
truth of the Christian ages — that all glory was to be begun in
suffering, and all power in humility.

Assembling the images we have traced, and adding the sim-
plest of all, from Isaiah xl. 6., we find, the grass and flowers
are types, in their passing, of the passing of human life, and,

VOL. III.] I. THE FOREST. 233

in their excellence, of the excellence of human life ; and this in
a twofold way ; first, by their Beneficence, and then, by their
endurance : — the grass of the earth, in giving the seed of corn,
and in its beauty under tread of foot and stroke of scythe ;
and the grass of the waters, in giving its freshness for our
rest, and in its bending before the wave.* But understood in
the broad human and Divine sense, the " herb yielding seed "
(as opposed to the fruit-tree yielding fruit) includes a third
family of plants, and fulfils a third office to the human race.
It includes the great family of the lints and flaxes, and fulfils
thus the three offices of giving food, raiment, and rest. Follow
out this fulfilment ; consider the association of the linen gar-
ment and the linen embroidery, with the priestly office, and
the furniture of the tabernacle ; and consider how the rush
has been, in all time, the first natural carpet thrown under the
human foot. Then next observe the three virtues definitely
set forth by the three families of plants; not arbitrarily or
fancifully associated with them, but in all the three cases
marked for us by Scriptural words :

1st. Cheerfulness, or joyful serenity ; in the grass for food
and beauty. — " Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow ;
they toil not, neither do they spin."

2nd. Humility; in the grass for rest. — "A bruised reed
shall He not break."

3rd. Love ; in the grass for clothing (because of its swift
kindling), — " The smoking flax shall he not quench."

And then, finally, observe the confirmation of these last two
images in, I suppose, the most important prophecy, relating to
the future state of the Christian Church, which occurs in the
Old Testament, namely, that contained in the closing chapters
of Ezekiel. The measures of the Temple of God are to be
taken ; and because it is only by charity and humility that
those measures ever can be taken, the angel has " a line of
flax in his hand, and a measuring reed,^* The use of the line
was to measure the land, and of the reed to take the dimen-

* So also in laa. xxxy. 7., the prevalonce of righteousness and peace oyer
all evil is thus foretold :

'* In the habitation of dragons, where each lay, shall be gr<M9, with reedi
and rushes,** .

$S4 OF KKDlMYXh ULKABCAPB. [PAKT IT.

Bions of the buildings ; so the buildings of the church, or its
labors, are to be measured hj humility, and its territory or
land, hj love. ^

The limits of the Church have, indeed, in later days, been
measured, to the world's sorrow, by another kind of flaxen
line, burning with the fire of unholy zeal, not with that of
Christian charity ; and perhaps the best lesson which we can
finally take to ourselves, in leaving these sweet fields of the
mediaeval landscape, is the memory that, in spite of all the
fettered habits of thought of his age, this great Dante, this
inspired exponent of what lay deepest at the heart of the early
Church, placed his terrestrial paradise where there had ceased
to be fence or division, and where the grass of the earth was
bowed down, in unity of direction, only by the soft waves that
bore with them the foif etfulness of ei^

Tou III.] I. tBR vounnr. 285

OHAPTEE XV.

OF IIBDIJSVAL LANDBOAPS : SECONDLT, THE ROOKS.

§ 1. I CLOSED the last chapter, not because our subject was
exhausted, but to give the reader breathing time, and because I
supposed he would hardly care to turn back suddenly from the
subjects of thought last suggested, to the less pregnant matters
of inquiry connected with mediaeval landscape. Nor was the
pause mistimed even as respects the order of our subjects ; for
hitherto we have been arrested chiefly by the beauty of the
pastures and fields, and have followed the mediaeval mind in its
fond regard of leaf and flower. But now we have some hard
hill-climbing to do ; and the remainder of our investigation mubt
be carried on, for the most part, on hands and knees, so that it
is not ill done of us first to take breath.

§ 2. It will be remembered that in the last chapter, § 14.* we
supposed it probable that there would be considerable inaccu-
racies in the mediaeval mode of regarding nature. Hitherto,
however, we have found none ; but, on the contrary, intense
accuracy, precision, and affection. The reason of this is, that
all floral and foliaged beauty might be perfectly represented, as
far as its form went, in the sculpture and ornamental painting
of the period ; hence the attention of men was thoroughly
awakened to that beauty. But as mountains and clouds and
large features of natural scenery could not be accurately repre-
sented, we must be prepared to find them not so carefully
contemplated, — ^more carefully, indeed, than by the Greeks,
but still in no wise as the things themselves^ deserve.

§ 3. It was besides noticed that mountains, though regarded
with reverence by the mediaeval, were also the subjects of a cer-
tain dislike and dread. And we have seen already that in fact
the place of the soul's purification, though a mountain, is yet by

t^36 OF WSDUKVAL LANDBCAPK. [PA|ETIY.

Dante subdued, whenever there is an j pleasantness to be found
upon it, from all mountainous character into grassy recesses, or
slopes to rush J shore ; and, in his general conception of it, re-
sembles much more a castle mound, surrounded hj terraced
walks, — in the manner, for instance, of one of Turner's favorite
scenes, the bank under Richmond Castle (Yorkshire) ; or, still
more, one of the hill slopes divided by terraces, above the Rhine,
in which the picturesqueness of the ground has been reduced to
the form best calculated for the growing of costly wine, than
any scene to which we moderns should naturally attach the term
" Mountainous." On the other hand, although the Inferno is
just as accurately measured and divided as the Purgatory, it is
nevertheless cleft into rocky chasms which possess something
of true mountain nature — nature which we modems of the north
should most of us seek with delight, but which, to the great Flo-
rentine, appeared adapted only for the punishment of lost spi-
rits, and which, on the mind of nearly all his countrymen, would
to this day produce a very closely correspondent effect ; so that
their graceful language, dying away on the north side of the
Alps, gives its departing accents to proclaim its detestation of
hardness and ruggedness ; and is heard for the last time, as it be-
stows on the noblest defile in all the Orisons, if not in all the
Alpine chain, the name of the " evil way " — " la Via Mala."

§ 4. This " evil way," though much deeper and more sub-
lime, corresponds closely in general character to Dante's " Evil-
pits," just as the banks of Richmond do to his mountain of Pur-
gatory ; and it is notable that Turner has been led to illustrate,
with his whole strength, the character of both ; having founded,
as it seems to me, his early dreams of mountain form altogether
on the sweet banks of the Yorkshire streams, and rooted
his hardier thoughts of it in the rugged clefts of the Via
Mala.

§ 5. Nor of the Via Mala only : a correspondent defile on the
St. Gothard, — so terrible in one part of it, that it can, indeed,
suggest no ideas but those of horror to minds either of northern
or southern temper, and whose wild bridge, cast from rock to
rock over a chasm as utterly hopeless and escapeless as any into
which Dante gazed from the arches of Malebolge, has been,
therefore, ascribed both by northern and southern lips to the

VOL. III.] II. THE ROCKS. 237

master-building of the great spirit of evil — supplied to Turner
the element of his most terrible thoughts in mountain vision,
even to the close of his life. The noblest plate in the series of
the Liber Studiorum,* one engraved by his own hand, is of thnt
bridge ; the last mountain journey he ever took was up the
defile; and a rocky bank and arch, in the last mountain draw-
ing which he ever executed with his perfect power, are remem-
brances of the path by which he had traversed in his youth this
Malebolge of the St. Gothard.

§ 6. It is therefore with peculiar interest, as bearing on our
own proper subject, that we must examine Dante*s conception
of the rocks of the eighth circle. And first, as to general
tone of color : from what we have seen of the love of the
mediaeval for bright and variegated color, we might guess that
his chief cause of dislike to rocks would be, in Italy, their
comparative colorlessness. With hardly an exception, the
range of the Apennines is composed of a stone of which
some special account is given hereafter in the chapters on
Materials of Mountains, and of which one peculiarity, there
noticed, is its monotony of hue. Our slates and granites are
often of very lovely colors ; but the Apennine limestone is
so grey and toneless, that I know not any mountiiin district so
utterly melancholy as those which are composed of this rock,
when un wooded. Now, as far as I can discover from the
internal evidence in his poem, nearly all Dante's mountain
wanderings had been upon this ground. He had journeyed
once or twice among the Alps, indeed, but seems to have
been impressed chiefly by the road from Gorda to Trent, and
that along the Gomiche, both of which are cither upon those
limestones, or a dark serpentine, which shows hardly any
color till it is polished. It is not ascertainable that he had
ever seen rocky scenery of the finely colored kind, aided by
the Alpine mosses : I do not know the fall at Forli (Inferno,
xvi. 99.), but every other scene to which he alludes is among
these Apennine limestones ; and when he wishes to give the
idea of enormous mountain size, he names Tabernicch and
Pietra-pana, — the one clearly chosen only for the sake of the
last syllable of its name, in order to make a sound as of crack-
* It is an unpublished plate I know only two impresBions of it

238 OF msdijcyal landscape. [part iy.

ing ice, with the two sequent rhymes of the stanza, — and the
other is an Apennine near Lucca.

§ 7. His idea, therefore, of rock color, founded on these
experiences, is that of a dull or ashen grey, more or less
stained hj the hrown of iron ochre, precisely as the Apennine
limestones nearly always are ; the grey being peculiarly cold
and disagreeable. As we go down the very hill which stretches
out from Pietra-pana towards Lucca, the stones laid by the
road side to mend it are of this ashen grey, with efflorescences
of manganese and iron in the fissures. The whole of Male-
bolge is made of this rock, '^ All wrought in stone of iron-
colored grwn."*

Perhaps the iron color may be meant to predominate in
Evilpits ; but the definite grey limestone color is stated
higher up, the river Styx flowing at the base of ** malignant
grey cliflfet" (the word malignant being given to the iron-color-
ed Malebolge also) ; and the same whitish-grey idea is given
again definitely in describing the robe of the purgatorial or pen-
ance angel, which is "of the color of ashes, or earth dug dry."
Ashes necessarily mean wood-ashes in an Italian mind, so that
we get the tone very pale ; and there can be no doubt what-
ever about the hue meant, because it is constantly seen on the
sunny sides of the Italian hills, produced by the scorching of
the ground, a dusty and lifeless whitish grey, utterly painful
and oppressive ; and I have no doubt that this color, assumed
eminently also by limestone crags in the sun, is the quality
which Homer means to express by a term he applies often to
bare rocks, and which is usually translated "craggy," or
"rocky." Now Homer is indeed quite capable of talking
of " rocky rocks," just as he talks sometimes of " wet water }"
but I think he means more by this word : it sounds as if it
were derived from another, meaning " meal," or " flour," and I
have little doubt it means " mealy white ; " the Greek lime-
stones being for the most part brighter in effect than the
Apennine ones.

§ 8. And the fact is, that the great and pre*eminent fault of

» (Cayley.) " Tatto di pietra, e di color ferrigno."— In£ xviil 2.
f " Mftligne piagge grige.*'— In£ yil lOS.

VOL. III.] n. Tm& KocKs. 239

Bouthern, as compared with nortberit scenery, is this rock"
whiteness, which gives to distant mountain ranges, lighted hj
the sun, sometimes a faint and monotonous glow, hardly
detaching itself from the whiter parts of the sky, and some-
times a speckled confusion of white light with blue shadow,
breaking up the whole mass of the hills, and making them look
near and small ; the whiteness being still distinct at the distance
of twenty or twenty-five miles. The inferiority and meagre-
ness of such effects of hill, compared with the massive purple
and blue of our own heaps of crags and morass, or the solemn
grass-green and pine-purples of the Alps, have always struck
me most painfully ; and they have rendered it impossible for any
poet or painter studying in the south, to enter with joy into
hill scenery. Imagine the difference to Walter Scott, if instead
of the single lovely color which, named by itself alone, was
enough to describe his hills, —

* Their southern rapine to renew,
Far in the distant Cheviot's bltie," —

a dusty whiteness had been the imi^e that first associated itself
with a hill range, and he had been obliged, instead of ** blue "
Cheviots, to say " barley-meal-colored" Cheviots.

§ 9. But although this would cause a somewhat painftil
shock even to a modem ndnd, it would be as nothing when
compared with the pain occasioned by absence of color to a
mediaeval one. We have been trained, by our ingenious prin-
ciples of Renaissance architecture, to think that meal-color and
ash-color are the properest colors of all ; and that the most
aristocratic harmonies are to be deduced out of grey mortar and
creamy stucco. Any of our modem classical architects would
delightedly '' face'' a heathery hill with Roman cement ; and
any Italian sacristan would, but for the cost of it, at once
whitewash the Cheviots. But the mediaevals had not arrived at
these abstract principles of taste. They liked fresco better
than whitewash ; and, on the whole, thought that Nature was
in the right in painting her flowers yellow, pink, and blue ; —
not grey. Accordingly, this absence of color from rocks, as
compared with meadows and trees, was in their eyes an unre-
deemable defect ; nor did it matter to them whether its place

240 OF MSDIiSyAL LANDSCAPE. [pART IV.

was supplied by the grey neutral tint, or the iron-colored
stain ; for both colors, grey and brown, were, to them, hues of
distress, despair, and mortification, hence adopted always for
the dresses of monks ; only the word " brown" bore, in their
color vocabulary, a still gloomier sense than with us. I was for
some time embarrassed by Dante's use of it with respect to
dark skies and water. Thus, in describing a simple twilight —
not a Hades twilight, but an ordinarily fair evening — (Inf. ii. 1 .)
he says, the " brown" air took the animals of earth away from
their fatigues ; — the waves under Charon's boat are " brown "
(Inf. iii. 117.) ; and Lethe, which is perfectly clear and yet
dark, as with oblivion, is " bruna-bruoa," " brown, eocceeding
brown." Now, clearly in all these cases no warmth is meant
to be mingled in the color. Dante had never seen one of our
bog-s'reams, with its porter-colored foam ; and there can be no
doubt that, in calling Lethe brown, he means that it was dark
slate grey, inclining to black ; as, for instance, our clear Cum-
berland lakes, which, looked straight down upon where they
are deep, seem to be lakes of ink. I am sure this is the color
he means ; because no clear stream or lake on the Continent
ever looks brown, but blue or green ; and Dante, by merely
taking away the pleasant color, would get at once to this idea of
grave clear grey. So, when he was talking of twilight, his eye
for color was far too good to let him call it hrtnvn in our sense.
Twilight is not brown, but purple, golden, or dark grey ; and
this last was what Dante meant. Farther, I find that this
negation of color is always the means by which Dante subdues
his tones. Thus the fatal inscription on the Hades gate
is written in " obscure color," and the air which torments
the passionate spirits is '* aer nero" black air (Inf. v. 51.), called
presently afterwards (line 81.) malignant air, just as the grey
cliffs are called malignant cliffs.

§ 10. I was not, therefore, at a loss to find out what Dante
meant by the word ; but I was at a loss to account for his not,
as it seemed, acknowledging the existence of the color of
brown at all ; for if he called dark neutral tint " brown," it
remained a question what term he would use for things of the
color of burnt nmbcr. But, one day, just when I was puzzling
myself about this, I happened to be sitting by one of our best

VOL. III.] JI. THE ROCKS. 241

living modem colorists, watching him at his work, when he
said, suddenly, and bj mere accidentj after we had heen talk-
ing of other things, ** Bo you know I have found that there is
no brown in Nature ? What* we call brown is always a variety
either of orange or purple. It never can be represented by
umber, unless altered by contrast."

§ 11. It is curious how far the significance of this remark
extends, how exquisitely it ilhistrates and confinns the me*
disBval sense of hue ; — ^how far, on the other hand, it cuts into
the heart of the old umber idolatries of Sir George Beaumont
and his colleagues, the " where do you put your brawn tree "
system; the code of Cremona-violin-colored foregrounds, of
brown varnish and asphaltum; and all the old night-owl
science, which, like Young's pencil of sorrow,

** In melanclioly dipped, embrowns the whole.**

Kay, I do Young an injustice by associating his words with
the asphalt schools ; for his eye for color was true, and like
Dante's ; an^ I doubt not that he means dark grey, as Byron
purple-grey in that night piece in the Siege of Corinth, begin-
ning

" "lis midnight ; on the mountains brotim
The eold, round moon looks deeply down ;"

and, by the way, Byron's best piece of evening color farther
certifies the hues of Dante's twilight, — it

** Dies like the dolphin, when it gasps away —
The last still loveliest; till 'tis gone, and all is ffreyJ*

§ 12. Let not, however, the reader confuse the use of brown,
as an expression of a natural tint, with its use as a means of
getting other tints. Brown is often an admirable ground, just
because it is the only tint which is not to be in the finished
picture, and because it is the best basis of many silver greys
and purples, utterly opposite to it in their nature. But there
is infinite difference between laying a brown ground as a re-
presentation of shadow, — and as a base for light ; and also an
infinite difference between using brown shadows, associated
with colored lights — always the characteristic of false schools
of color — and using brown as a warm neutral tint for general

VOL. III. 11

242 OF UEDIMVXh LANIMBOAPB. [PABT IT.

Study. I shall bare to pursue tbis subject farther hereafter, in
noticing hqvr brown is used hy great colorists in their studies,
not as color, but as the pleasantest negation of color, possess-
ing more transparency than black, and having more pleasant
and sunlike warmth. Hence Turner, in his early studies, used
blue for distant neutral tint, and brown for foreground neutral
tint ; while, as he advanced in color science, he gradually in-
troduced, in the place of brown, strange purples, altogether
peculiar to himself, founded, apparently, on Indian red and
vermilion, and passing into various tones of russet and
orange.* But, in the meantime, we must go back to Dante
and his mountains.

§ 13. We find, then, that his general type of rock color was
meant, whether pale or dark, to be a colorless grey — the most
melancholy hue which he supposed to exist in Nature (hence
the synonym for it, subsisting even till late times, in mediseval
appellatives of dress, " sad-colored ") — with some rusty stain
from iron ; or perhaps the " color ferrigno " of the Inferno
does not involve even so much of orange^ but ought to be
translated " iron grey."

This being his idea of the color of rocks, we have next to
observe his conception of their substance. And I believe it
will be found that the character on which he fixes first in them
is firangihilUy — breakableness to bits, as opposed to wood,
which can be sawn or rent, but not shattered with a hammer,
and to metal, which is tough and malleable.

Thus, at the top of the abyss of the seventh circle, appointed
for the " violent," or souls who had done evil by force, we are
told, first, that the edge of it was composed of " great broken
stones in a circle ;" then, that the place was " Alpine ;" and, be-
coming hereupon attentive, in order to hear what an Alpine
place is like, we find that it was " like the place beyond Trent,
where the rock, either by earthquake, or failure of support, has
broken down to the plain, so that it gives any one at the top

* It is in these subtle purples that even the more elaborate passages of
the earlier drawings are worked ; as, for instance, the Highland streams,
tpoken of in Pre-Raphaelitism. Also, Turner could, by opposition, get
what color he liked out of a brown. I have seen coses in which he had
made it stand for the purest row light

TOL. m.] It. TH8 BOCKS. 24^3

some means of getting down to the bottom.*' This is nojfc a
Tcry elevated or enthusiastic description of an Alpine scene ;
and it is far from mended by the following verses, in which we
are told that Dante " began to go down by this great ttnloading
of stones," and that they moved often nnder his feet by reason
of the new weight. The fact is that Dante, by many expres-
sions thronghout the poem, shows himself to have been a
notably bad climber; and being fond of sitting in the sun,
looking at his fair Baptistery, or walking in a dignified manner
on flat pavement in a long robe, it puts him seriously out of his
way when he has to take to his hands and knees, or look to
his feet ; so that the first strong impression made upon him
by any AlpinQ scene whatever, is, clearly, that it is bad walk-
ing. Wlicn he is in a fright and hurry, and has a very steep
place to go down, Virgil has to carry him altogether, and is
obliged to encourage him, again and again, when they have a
steep slope to go up, — the first ascent of the purgatorial moun-
tain. The similes by which he illustrates the steepness of that
ascent are all taken from the Riviera of Genoa, now traversed
by a good carriage road under the name of the Comiche ; but
as this road did not exist in Dante's time, and the steep preci-
pices and promontories were then probably traversed by foot-
paths, which, as they necessarily passed in many places over
crumbling and slippery limestone, were doubtless not a little
dangerous, and as in the manner they commanded the bays of
sea below, and lay exposed to the full blaze of the south-
eastern sun, they corresponded precisely to the situation of the
path by which he ascends above the purgatorial sea, the image
could not possibly have been taken from a better source for
the fully conveying his idea to the reader : nor, by the way, is
there reason to discredit, in this place, his powers of climbing ;
for, with his usual accuracy, he has taken the angle of the path
for us, saying it was considerably more than forty-five. Now
a continuous mountain slope of forty five degrees is already
quite unsafe either for ascent or descent, except by zigzag
paths ; and a greater slope than this could not be climbed,
straightforward, but by help of crevices or jags in the rock,
and great physical exertion besides.

§ 14. Throughout these passages, however, Dante's thoughts

244 OF lOBIiKTAI. U^HDSCAPX. [PABT IV.

are elearty fixed altogether on the qnestion of mere accesnhi-
lay or inaccessibilitj. He does not show the smallest interest
in the rocks, except as things to be conquered; and his
description of their appearance is utterly meagre, inyolving no
other epithets than " erto *' (steep or upright), Inf. xix. 131.,
Purg. iii. 48. &c. ; " sconcio " (monstrous), Infl xix. 131. ;
" stagliata " (cut). Inf. xvii. 134. ; " maligno " (malignant),
Inf viL 108.; "duro" (hard), xx. 25.; with "large" and
'* broken " (rotto) in various places. No idea of roundness,
masslveness, or pleasant form of any kind appears for a moment
to enter his mind ; and the different names which are given to
the rocks in various places seem merely to refer to variations
in size : thus a " rocco " is a part of a "scoglio," Inf. xx. 25.
and xxvi. 27. ; a " scheggio " (xxi. 69. and xxvi. 17.) is a less
fragment yet ; a " petrone," or " sasso," is a large stone or
boulder (Purg. iv. 101. 104.), and " pietra,'* a less stone, — both
of these last terms, especially " sasso," being used for any
large mountainous mass, as in Purg. xxi. 106. ; and the vague-
ness of the word ** monte " itself, like that of the French
" montagne," applicable either to a hill on a post-road requir-
ing the drag to be put on, — or to the Mont Blanc, marks a
peculiar carelessness in both nations, at the time of the forma-
tion of their languages, as to the sublimity of the higher hills ;
so that the effect produced on an English ear by the word
" mountain," signifying always a mass of a certain large size,
cannot be conveyed either in French or Italian.

§ 15. In all these modes of regarding rocks we find (rocks
being in themselves, as we shall see presently, by no means
monstrous or frightful things) exactly that inaccuracy in the
mediaeval mind which we had been led to expect, in its bear-
ings on things contrary to the spirit of that symmetrical and
perfect humanity which had formed its ideal ; and it is very
curious to observe how closely in the terms he uses, and the
feelings they indicate, Dante here agrees with Homer; For the
word stagliata (cut) corresponds very nearly to a favorite
term of Homer's respecting rocks " sculptured," used by him
also of ships' sides ; and the frescoes and illuminations of the
Middle Ages enable us to ascertain exactly what this idea of
" cut " rock was.

M-

iu. Go(Aogy uf the Middle Ages.

vol. in.] n. TBK Bocncs. 245

§ 16. In Plate 10. I have assembled some examples, vbich
will give the reader a sufficient knowledge of medls&val rock-
drawing, by men whose names are known. Tliey are chiefly
taken from engravings, with which the reader has it in his
power to compare them,* and if, therefore, any injustice is
done to the original paintings the fault is not mine ; but the
general impression conveyed fk quite accurate, and it would
not have been wooth while, where work is so deficient in first
conception, to lose time in insuring accuracy of facsimile.
Some of the crags may be taller here, or broader there, than
in the original paintings ; but the character of the work is per-
fectly preserved, and that is all with which we are at present
concerned.

Figs. 1. and 5. are by Ghirlandajo ; 2. by Filippo Pesellino ;
4. by Leonardo da Vinci ; and 6. by Andrea del Castagno.
All these are indeed workmen of a much later period than
Dante, but the system of rock-drawing remains entirely un-
changed from Giotto's time to Ghirlandajo's ; — is then altered
only by an introduction of stratification indicative of a little
closer observance of nature, and so remains until Titian's
time. Fig. 1. is exactly representative of one of Giotto's
rocks, though actually by Ghirlandajo ; and Fig. 2. is rather
less skilful than Giotto's ordinary work. Both these figures
indicate precisely what Hpmer and Dante meant by ** cut "
rocks. They ha4 observed the concave smoothness of certain
rock fractures as eminently distinctive of rock from earth, and
use the term " cut " or '' sculptured " to distinguish the smooth
surface from the knotty or sandy one, having observed nothing
more respecting its real contours than is represented in Figs. 1.
and 2., which look as if they had been hewn out with an adze.
Xtorenzo Ghiberti preserves the same type, even in his finest
work.

Fig. 3., from an interesting sixteenth century MS. in the
British Museum (Cotton, Augustus, A. 5.), is characteristic of
the best later illuminators' work ; and Fig. 5., from Ghirlandajo,
is pretty illustrative of Dante's idea of terraces on the purga-
torial mountain. It is the road by which the Magi descend in
his picture of their Adoration, in the Academy of Florence.
* The references are in Appendix L

246 OF MXDtCTAL ULKMCAPX. [pi«T IT.

Of the other examples I shall have more to say in the chapter
on Precipices ; meanwhile we hare to return to the landscape
of the poem.

4 17. Inaccurate as this conception of rock was, it seems to
have been the only one which, in mediaeval art, had place as
representative of mountain scenery. To Da^te, mountains
are inconceivable except as great broken stones or crags ; all
their broad contours and undulationa seem to have escaped his
eje. It is, indeed, with his usual undertone of symbolic
meaning that he describes the great broken stones, and the
fall of the shattered mountain, as the entrance to the circle
appointed for the punishment of the violent ; meaning that the
violent and cruel, notwithstanding all their iron hardness of
heart, have no true strength, but, either by earthquake, ,or
want of support, fall at last into desolate ruin, naked, loose,
and shaking under the tread. But in no part of the poem do we
find allusion to mountains in any other than a stem light ; nor
the slightest evidence that Dante cared to look at them. From
that hill of San Miniato, whose steps he knew so well, the eye
commands, at the farther extremity of the Val d'Arno, the
whole purple range of the mountains of Carrara, peaked and
mighty, seen always against the sunset light in silent outline,
the chief forms that rule the scene as twilight fades away. By
this vision Dante seems to have been wholly unmoved, and, but
for Lucan's mention of Amns at Luna, would seemingly not have
spoken of the Carrara hills in the whole course of his poem :
when he does allude to them, he speaks of their white marble,
and their command of stars and sea, but has evidently no re-
gard for the hills themselves. There is not a single phrase or
syllable throughout the poem which indicates such a regard.
Ugolino, in his dream, seemed to himself to be in the moun-
tains, ** by cause of which the Fisan cannot see Lucca ;" and
it is impossible to look up from Pisa to that hoary slope without
remembering the awe that there is in the passage ; neverthe-
less, it was as a hunting-ground only that he remembered those
hills. Adam of Brescia, tormented with eternal thirst, remem-
bers the hills of fiomena, but only for the sake of their sweet
waters :

TOL. 1U«] II. TH£ ROCKS. 247

'' Hie rilb that glitter down the graaej alopet
Of Casentino, making freeh and soft
The banks whereby they glide to Amo's rtreaoif
Stand ever in my view."

And, wnenever hills are spoken of as baving anj inflaenoe on
character, the repugnance to them is still manifest ; they are
always caoses of mdeness or craelty :

" But that ungrateful and malignant race,
Who in old times eame down from Fesole,
A^f andUUltmack of their rmugh moutUainJli»i^
Willy for thy good deeds, show thee enmity.
Take heed tkou eleanse thee of their ways."

So again —

*' As one mouniain^hred.
Bugged, and olownieh, if some eit/s walls
He ehance to enter, round him stares agape."

§ 18. Finally, although the Carrara mountains are named as
having command of the stars and sea, the Alps are never spe-
cially mentioned but in bad weather, or snow. On the sand of
the circle of the blasphemers —

" Fdl slowly wafting down
Dilated flakes of fire, as flakes of snow
On Alpine summit, when the wind is hushed."

So the Paduans have to defend their town and castles
against inundation,

*' Ere the genial warmth be fdt,
On Chiarentana*s top."

The clouds of anger, in Purgatory, can only be figured to
the reader who has

" On an Alpine height been ta*en by elond,
Through whieh thou saweat no better than the mole
Both through opacous membrane.**

And in approacliing the second branch of Lethe, the seven
ladies pause, —

248 OF UEmMVjLh ulnmcapk. [past it.

" ArriThig at tli« yerge
Of a dim umbrage hoar, Mich as is seen
Beneath green leaves and gloomy branches oft
To overbrov a bleak and Alpine cliff,**

§ 19. Truly, it is unfair of Dante, that when he is going
to use. snow for a lovely image, and speak of it as melting
away under heavenly sunshine, ho must needs put it on the
Apennines, not on the Alps :

" As snow thnt lies
Amidst the living mfters, on the back
Of Italy, congealed, when drifted high
And eloscly {Hied by rough Sclavonian blasts,
Breathe but the land whereon no shadow iallf,
And straightway melting, it distils away,
Like a fire-wasted taper ; thus was I,
Without a sigh, or tear, consumed in heart."

The reader will thank me for reminding him, though out of
its proper order, of the exquisite passage of Scott which we
have to compare with this :

''As snow upon the mountnin*s breast
Slides from the rock that gave it rest,
Sweet Ellen glided from her stay,
And at the monarches feet she lay."

Examine the context of this last passage, and its heauty is
quite heyond praise ; but note the northern love of rocks in the
very first words I have to quote from Scott, " The rocks that
gave it rest" Dante could not have thought of his "cut
rocks" as giving rest even to snow. He must put it on the
pine branches, if it is to be at peace.

§ 20. There is only one more point to be noticed in the Dan-
tesque landscape ; namely, the feeling entertained by the poet
towards the sky. And the love of mountains is so closely connect-
ed with the love of clouds, the sublimity of both depending much
on their association, that having found Dante regardless of the
Carrara mountains as seen from San Miniato, we may well ex-
pect to find him equally regardless of the clouds in which the sun
sank behind them. Accordingly, we find that his only pleasure
in the sky depends on its ** white cleamesv," — that turning into

rou m.] n. tHs uo^kb. 349

" bianca aspette di celcfftro " which is so peculiarly characteris-
tic of fine days in Italy. His pieces of pure pale light are al-
ways exquisite. In the dawn on the pargatorial mountain, first,
in its pale white, he sees the '* tremola della marina"— trem-
bling of the sea ; then it becomes vermilion ; and at last, near
sunrise, orange. These are precisely the changes of a calm and
perfect dawn. The scenery of Paradise begins with " Day add-
ed to day," the light of the sun so flooding the heavens, that
" never rain nor river made lake so wide ;" and throughout the
Paradise all the beauty depends on spheres of light, or stars,
never on clouds. But the pit of the Inferno is at first sight ob-
scure, deep, and so cloudy that at its bottom nothing could be
seen. When Dante and Virgil reach the marsh in which the
souls of those who have been angry and sad in their lives are
for ever plunged, they find it covered with thick fog ; and the
eondemned souls say to them, —

" We onoe were sad,
In the stoeet air, made gladsome hy the tun,
Now in these murky settlings are we sad.**

Even the angel crossing the marsh to help them is annoyed by
this bitter marsh smoke, ''fummo acerbo," and continually
sweeps it with his hand from before his face.

Anger, on the purgatorial mountain, is in like manner imaged^
because of its blindness and wildness, by the Alpine clouds. As
they amerge from its mist they see the white light radiated
through the fading folds of it ; and, except this appointed cloud,
no other can touch the mountain of purification.

"Tempest none, shower, hail, or snow,
Hoar-froAt, or dewy moifitness, higher falls^
Than that brief scale of threefold steps. Thick clouds^
Nor scudding rack, are ever seen, swift glance
Ne'er lightens, nor Thaumantian iris gleams.'*

Dwell for a little while on this intense love of Dante for
light,— taught, as he is at last by Beatrice, to gaze on the sun
itself like an eagle,— and endeavor to enter into his equally
intense detestation of all mist, rack of cloud, or dimness of rain;
and then consider with what kind of temper he would have re-

11*

260 OF MSDtOTAL LAVMCAPK. [pAKT IT*

garded a landscape of Coplej FieldingVor passed a daj in the
Highlands. He has, in fact, assigned to the souls of the glut-
tonous no other punishment in the Inferno than perpetuity
of Highland weather :

C«stelMfk accnrsAd, heavy and oald» unchanged
For ever, hoth in kind and in degree, —
Large hail, discolored water, sleety flaw,
'Hmmgfa the dim midnight nir streamed down amain.*

«

§ 21. However, in this immitigable dislike of clouds, Dante
goes somewhat beyond the general temper of his age. For al*
though the calm sky was alone loved, and storm and rain were
dreaded by all men, yet the white horizontal clouds of serene
summer were regarded with great affection by all eariy painters,
and considered as one of the accompaniments of the manifestation
of spiritual power ; sometimes, for theological reasons which we
shall soon have to examine, being received, even without any
other sign, as the types of blessing or Divine acceptance : and
in almost every representation of the heavenly paradise, these
level clouds are set by the early painters for its floor, or for
thrones of its angels ; whereas Dante retains steadily, through
circle after circle, his cloudless thought, and concludes his paint-
ing of heaven, as he began it upon the purgatorial mountain,
with the image of shadowless morning :

** I raised my eyes, and as at morn is seea
The hori2on*B eastern quarter to excel.
So likewise, that pacific Oriflamb
Glowed in the midmost, and toward erery part,
With like gradation paled away its flame."

But the best way' of regarding this feeling of Dante's is as
the ultimate and most intense expression of the love of light,
color, and clearness, which, as we saw above, distinguished the
mediaeval from the Greek on one side, and, as we shall pre-
sently see, distinguished him from the modern on the other.
For it is evident that precisely in the degree in which the
Greek was agriculturally inclined, in that degree the sight of
clouds would become to him more acceptable . than to the
mediaeval knight, who only looked for the fine afternoons in

TOL. in.] U. TBB ROCKS. 251

which he might gather the flowers in his garden* and in no
wise shared or imagined the previoits anxieties of his gardener.
Thus» when we find Ulysses comforted about Ithaea» by being
told it had " plenty of rain," and the maids of Colonos boasting
of their country for the same reason, we may be sure that they
had some regard for clouds ; and accordingly, except Aristo-
phanes, of whom more presently, all the Greek poets speak
fondly of the clouds, and consider them the fittmg resting-
places of the gods ; including in their idea of clouds not merely
the thin clear cirrus, but the rolling and changing Tolume of
the thunder-cloud ; nor even these only, but also the dusty
whirlwind cloud of the earth, as in that noble chapter of Hero-
dotus which tells us of the cloud, full of mystic voices, that
rose out of the dust of Eleusis, and went down to Salamis.
Clouds and rain were of course regarded with a like gratitude
by the eastern and southern nations — Jews and Egyptians ;
and it is only among the northern mediievalsi with whom fine
weather was rarely so prolonged as to occasion painful drought*
or dangerous famme, and oyer whom the clouds broke coldly
and fiercely when they came, that the love of serene light
assumes its intense character, and the fear of tempest is gloom-
iest ; so that the powers of the clouds which to the Greek fore-
told his conquest at Salamis, and with whom he fought in
alliance, side by side with their lightnings, under the crest of
Parnassus, seemed, in the heart of the Middle Ages, to be only
under the dominion of the spirit of evil. I have reserved, for
our last example of the landscape of Dante, the passage in
which this conviction is expressed ; a passage not less notable
for its close description of what the writer feared and disliked,
than for the ineffable tenderness, in which Pante is always
raised as much above all other poets, as in softness the rose
above all other flowers. It is the spirit of Buonconte da
Montefeltro who speaks :

' Then aaid another: ' Ah, so may thy wish,
That takes thee o'er the mountain, be fulfilled,
As thou shalt graciously give aid to mine I
Of Montefeltro I ; Buonconte I :
Giovanna, nor none else, have care for me ;
Sorrowing with these I therefore go.' I thus t

252 OF MBDIiWAL lANDSOAPS. [p AST IT.

'Wrwn C$tn^\Sno*9 field wh«t foree or dumee
I>r«w thee, that ne*er thy eepnlchre was knovnf

' Oh I' answered he,,* at Caeeotiho's foot
A stream there coursetb, named Archiano, sprung
In Apennine, above the hermit's seat
E'en where its name is cancelled, there came I,
Pierced in the throat, fleeing away on foot^
And bloodying the plain. Here sight and apeeoh
Failed me ; and finishing with Mary's name,
I fell, and tenantless my flesh renuiined.

l%ai evU will, which in his intelleet

BtiUfoUawstvU, came;

• • the vaBey, soon

As day was spent, he covered o'er wUk ehmi

From Pratomagno to the mountain ranges

And stretched the sky above ; so that the air,

Impregnate, changed to water. Fell the rain ;

And to the fosses came all that the land

Contained not; and as mightiest streams ave wont^

To the great river, with sneh headlong sweep,

Bushed, that nought stayed its course. My stiffened fnona

Laid at his mouth, the fell Archiano found.

And dashed it into Arno ; from my breast

Loosening the cross, that of myself I made

When overcome with pain. He hurled me on.

Along the banks and bottom of his course;

Then in his muddy spoils encircling wrapt.' "

Observe, Buonconte, as he dies, crosses Ms arms over his
breast, pressing them together, partly in his pain, partly in
prayer. His body thus lies by the river shore, as on a sepul-
chral monument, the arms folded into a cross. The rage of
the river, under the influence of the evil demon, unloves this
cross, dashing the body supinely away, and rolling it over and
over by bank and bottom. Nothing can be truer to the action
of a stream in ftiry than these lines. And how desolate is it
all ! The lonely flight, — the grisly wound, " pierced in the
tbroat," — the death, without help or pity, — only the name of
Mary on the lips, — and the cross folded over the heart. Then
the rage of the demon and the river, — ^the noteless grave, —
and, at last, even she who had been most trusted forgettipg
him, —

''Giovanna, none else have care for me."

YOh, mj R. TBI BOOKS. 268

There is, I feel assured, nothing else like it in all the range of
poetry; a faint and harsh echo of it, onlj, exists in one
Scottish ballad, " The Twa Corbies."

Here, then, I think, we may close our inquiry into the nature
of the medisBval landscape; not but that many details yet
require to be worked out ; but these will be best observed by
recurrence to them, .for comparison with similar details in
modern landscape, — our principal purpose, the getting at the
governing tones and temper of conception, being, I believe,
now sufficiently accomplished. And I think that our subject
may be best pumied by immediately turning from the mediaeval
to the perfectly modem landscape ; for although I have much
to aay respecting the transitional state of mind exhibited in the
uxteenth and seventeenth centnries, I believe the transitions
may be more easily explained afler we have got clear sight of
the extremes; and that by getting perfect anc^ separate hold of
the three great phases of art,-— Oreek, medisevat and modern,
— *we shall be enabled to trace, with least chance of error,
those curious vacillations which brought us to the modem
temper while vainly endeavcning to resuscitate the Greek* I
propose, therefore, in the next chapter, to examine the spirit of
modem landscape, as seen generidly in modem painting, and
especially in the poetry of Scott.

SM OF womuoK uunMNUPK. [pikST rr.

OHAPTEB XVL

OF MODEBN LAVDSCAPX.

§ !• Wb tarn our eyes* tfaereforo, & boldl j and as qnicklj as
may be» from these serene fields and skies of medisval art, to
the most characteristic examples of modem landscape. And,
I belioTe, the first thing that irill strike ns, or that ought
to strike as, is their daudtneMt.

Oat of perfect light and motionless air, ire find onrselv^s on
a sodden hronght nnder somhre skies, and into drifting wind ;
and, with fickle sunbeams fiashing in our face, or utterly
drenched with sweep of rain, we are reduced to track the
changes of the shadows on the grass, or watch the rents of
twilight through angry cloud. And we find that whereas all the
f4easare of the mediaeval was in sfakUit^t definiieMegSf and
lummousneis, we are expected to rejoice in darkness, and
triumph in mutability; to lay the foundation of happiness in
things which momentarily change or fade ; and to expect the
utmost satisfaction and instruction from what is impossible
to arrest, and difficult to comprehend.

§ 2. We find, however, together with this general delight in
breeze and darkness, much attention to the real form of clouds,
and careful drawing of effects of mist : so that the appearance
of objects, as seen through it, becomes a subject of science
with us : and the futhful representation of that appearance is
made of primal importance, under the name of aerial perspec-
tive. The aspects of sunset and sunrise, with all their attendant
phenomena of cloud and mist, are watchfully delineated ; and
in ordinary daylight landscape, the sky is considered of so
much importance, that a principal mass of foliage, or a whole
foreground, is unhesitatingly thrown into shade merely to bring
out the form of a white cloud. So that, if a general and

VOL* UI.] OF XODSftN X^HMOAFS. 865

charactmstic name were needed for modem landscape art,
none better oonld be invented than "the service of clouds/*

§ 3 And this name wottld> nnfortunatelj. be characteristic
of onr art in more ways than one In the last chapter, I said
that all the Greeks spoke kindly about the*clouds, except
Aristophanes ; and he, I am sorry to say (since his report is
so unfavorable), is the only Greek who had studied them at-
tentively He tells us, first, that they are " great goddesses to
idle men,' then, that they are "mistresses of dispntings, and
logic, and raom^rosities, and noisy chattering ;" declares that
whoso beUeves in their divinity must first disbelieve in Jupiter,
and place . supreme power in the hands of an unknown god
'* Whirlwind ;" and, finally, he displays their influence over
the mind of one of their disciples, in liis sudden desire " to
speak ingeniously concerning smoke.''

There is, I fear, an infinite truth in this Aristophanic judg*
ment applied to our modern clond^worship. Assuredly, much
of the love of mystery in our romances, our poetry, our art,
and, above all, in our metaphysics, must come under that de*
finhion so long ago given by the great Greek, *' speaking in^
geniously concerning smoke." And much of the instinct,
which, partially developed in painting, may be now seen
throughout every mode of exertion of mind, — ^tbe easily en-
couraged doubt, easily excited curiosity^ habitual agitation^
and delight in the changing and the marvellous, as opposed to
the old quiet serenity of social custom and religious faith ,-*is
again deeply defined in those few words, the " dethroning of
Jupiter," the "coronation of the whirlwind."

§ 4. Nor of whirlwind merely, but also of darkness or ignor-
ance respecting all stable facts. That darkening of the fore-
ground to bring out the white cloud, is, in one aspect of it, a
type of the subjection of all plain and positive fact, to what is
uncertain and unintelligible. And as we examine farther into
the matter, we shall be struck by another great difierence be-
tween the old and modern landscape, namely, that in the old
no one ever thought of drawing anything but as well as he
could. That might not be wellf as we have seen in the case of
rocks y but it was as well as he could, and alwaya distinctly.
Leaf, or stone, or animal, or man, it was equally drawn with

SM or ifoi>sii» tAVDMAm. [pAter nr.

care sncl elearness, and it« essential cliaraeters shown. If it
was an oak tree, the acorns were drawn ; if a flint pebhle» its
reins were drawn ; if an arm of the sea, its fish were drawn ;
if a group of figures, their faces and dresses were drawn — to
the rerj last snbtletj of expression and end of thread that
eould be got into the space, far off or near. But now our in-
genuitj is all *' concerning smoke." Nothing is tralj drawn
but that ; all else is yi^e, slight, imperfect ; got with as little
pains as possible. You examine your closest foreground, and
find no leaves ; jour largest oak, and find no acorns ; your
human figure, and find a spot of red paint instead of a face ;
and in all this, again and again, the Aristophanie words come
true, and the clouds seem to be '* great goddesses to idle men.*'

§ 5. The next thing that will strike us, after this love of
clouds, is the love of liberty. Whereas the medisval was
always shutting himself into castles, and behind fosses, and
drawing brick-work neatly, and beds of flowers primly, our
painters delight in getting to the open fields and moors ; abhor
all hedges and moats ; never paint anything but free-growing
trees, and rivers gliding " at their own sweet will ;" eschew
formality down to the smallest detail ; break and displace the
brickwork which the medieeval would have carefully cement-
ed; leave unpruned the thickets he would have delicately
trimmed; and, carrying the love of liberty even to license,
and the love of wildness even to ruin, take pleasure at last ia
every aspect of age and desolation which emancipates the
objects of nature from the government of men ;— on the castle
wall displacing its tapestry with ivy, and spreading, through
the garden, the bramble for the rose.

§ 6. Connected with this love of liberty we find a singular
manifestation of love of mountains, and see our painters tra*
versing the wildest places of the globe in order to obtain sub-
jects with craggy foregrounds and purple distances. Some
few of them remain content with pollards and flat laud ; but
these are always men of third-rate order; and the leading
masters, while they do not reject the beauty of the low-
grounds, reserve their highest powers to paint Alpine peaks or
Italian promontories. And it is eminently noticeable, also,
that this pleasure in the mountains is never mingled with fear»

YOU m.] ov* Mummsm iMSMtJApm. tBt

or tempered hj a spirit of meditation^ as iridi the raediseval ;
but it is always free and fearless, brightly exhilarating, and
wholly nnreflectire ; so that the painter feels that his moun*
tain foreground may be more consistently animated by a
sportmnan than a hermit ; and our modem society in general
goes to the mountains, not to fast, but to feast, and leaves their
glaciers covered with chicken-^bones and egg-shells.

§ 7. Connected with this want of any sense of solemnity in
mountain scenery, is a general profanity of temper in regard-
ing all the rest of nature ; that is to say, a total absence of
faith in the presence of any deity therein. Whereas the medi-
eval never painted a cloud, but with the purpose of placing an
angel in it ; and a Greek never entered a wood without
expecting to meet a god in it ; we should think the appearance
of an angel in the cloud wholly unnatural, and should be
seriously surprised by meeting a god anywhere. Our chief
ideas about the wood are connected with poaching. We have
no belief that the clouds contain more than so many inches
of rain or hail, and ^om our ponds and ditches expect nothing
more divine than ducks and watercresses.

§ 8. Finally : connected with this profanity of temper is a
strong tendency to deny the sacred element of color, and
make our boast in blackness. For though occasionally glaring,
or violent, modern color is on the whole eminently sombre,
tending continually to grey or brown, and by many of our best
painters consistently falsified, with a confessed pride in what
they call chaste or subdued tints ; so that, whereas a mediaeval
paints his sky bright blue, and his foreground bright green,
gilds the towers of his castles, and clothes his figures with
purple and white, we paint our sky grey, our foreground black,
and our foliage brown, and think that enough is sacrificed to
the sun in admitting the dangerous brightness of a scarlet cloak
or a blue jacket.

§ 9. These, I believe, are the principal points which would
strike us instantly, if we were to be brought suddenly into an
exhibition of modern landscapes out of a room filled with medi-
SBval work. It is evident that there are both evil and good in
this change ; but how much evil, or how much good, we can
only estimate by considering, as in the former divisions of our

MB or wm*mM iJunwoAn^ [past rr.

mqairyf what are the real roots of the habits of xniud whieh
have caused them.

'l>btiBetiTe And first, it is evident that the title ''Dark
tiifmckkm' Ages," g^ven to the medisval centuries, is, respecting
'^^' art, wholly inapplicable. Thej were, on the con-

trary, the bright ages ; oars are the dark ones. I do not mean
metaphjsicallj, but literallj. They were the ages of gold
ours are the ages of umber.

iriSSgftSm*^ "^^"^ " partly -more mistake m us; we build
ft i thi a M noM. brown brick walls, and wear brown coats, because
we have been blunderingly taught to do so, and go on doing so
mechanically. There is, however, also some cause for the
change in our own tempers. On the whole, these are much
Madder ages than the early ones ; not sadder in a noble and
deep way, but in a dim, wearied way, — ^the way of ennui, and
jaded intellect, and uncomfortableness of soul and body. The
Middle Ages had their wars and agonies, but also intense
delights. Their gold was dashed with blood; but ours is
sprinkled with dust. Their life was interwoven with white and
purple ; ours is one seamless stuff of brown. Not tbat we are
without apparent festivity, but festivity more or less forced,
mistaken, embittered, incomplete — not of the heart. How
wonderfully, since Shakspere's time, have we lost the power of
laughing at bad jests ! The very finish of our wit belies our
gaiety.

§ 10. The profoundest reason of this dai^ness of heart is, I
believe, our want of faith. There never yet was a generation
of men (savage or civilized) who, taken as a body, so wofolly
fulfilled the words, '' having no hope, and without God in the
world," as the present civilized European race. A Red Indian
or Otaheitan savage has more sense of a Divine existence round
him, or government over him, than the plurality of refined
Londoners and Parisians ; and those among us who may in
some sense be said to believe, are divided almost without
exception into two broad classes, Romanist and Puritan ; who,
but for the interference of the unbelieving portions of society,
would, either of them, reduce the other sect as speedily as
possible to ashes ; the Romanist having always done so when-
ever he could, from the beginning of their separation, and the

▼OUUI.] OV MODSBH LAIOMCiLTK M9

Pttriton al Ibis time holding himself ia compkeent expectatioii
of the destruction of Rome by Tolcanic fire. Bneh division as
this between persons nominally of one religion, that is to say,
believing in the same God, and the same Revelation, cannot
but become a stumbling-bloek of the gravest kind to all thought-
fol and far*8ighted men, — a stombling-block which they can
' only surmount tinder the most favorable circumstances of early
education. Hence, nearly all our powerful men in this age of i
the world are unbeliev^s ; the best of them in doubt and
misery ; the worst in reckless defiance ; thd plurality in plod- ;
ding hesitation, doing, as well as they can, what practical* work \
lies ready to their hands. Most of our scientific men are in
this last class ; our popular authors either set themselves i
definitely against all religious form, pleading for simple truth •
and benevolence (Thackeray, Dickens), or give themselves up !
to bitter and fruitless statement of facts (De Balzac), or sur- <
face-painting (Scott), or careless blasphemy, sad or smiling •
(Byron, Beranger). Our earnest poets, and deepest thinkers,'
are doubtful and indignant (Tennyson, Oarlyle) ; one or two,
anchored, indeed, but anxious, or weeping (Wordsworth, Mrs.
Browning) ; and of these two, the first is not so sure of his
anchor, but that now and then it drags with him, even to
make him cry out, —

" Great God, I had rather be
A Pagan suckled in some creed outworn :

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have ^^impses that would make me leas forlorn.*

In politics, religion is now a name ; in art, a hypocrisy or
afiectation. Over German religious pictures the inscriptioif
" See how Pious I am," can be read at a glance by any clear-
sighted person. Over French and English religious pictures,
the inscription, " See how Impious I am,'' is equally legible.
All sincere and modest art is, among us, profane.^

This faithlessness operates among us according fii- 1 Levity
to our tempers, producing cither sadness or levity,

* Pre-Raphaelitiam, of coarse, excepted, which is a new phase of art, in
no wise oonaidered in tius chapter. Blake was uno<ffe, but full <^ wild
creeds, and somewhat diseased m brain.

tM ov MOBBur ULMmoxtm ^Awrrr.

md being the ultinuite root alike of our diflooiiteiits and of
our wantonnesMS. It is marveUoiiB how full of eontradietion it
makes us; we are first dull, and seek for wild and lonelj
places because we have no heart for the garden ; presentlj we
recover our spirits^ and build an assembly room among the
mountains, because we have no reverence for the desert. I do
not know if there be game on Sinai, but I am always expecting
to hear of some one's shooting over it.

§ 12. There is, however, another, and a more innocent root
of our delight in wild scenery.
t, BMctiooarj All the Renaissance prindples of art tended, as I

loreofinani- _ , _ _ ,*, _* _ . *>

natobewtf. have before often expiamed, to the setting Beauty
above Truth, and seeking for it always at the expense of truth.
And the proper punishment of such pursuit — the punishment
which all the laws of the universe rendered inevitable — ^was, that
those who thus pursued beauty should wholly lose sight of
beauty. All the thinkers of the age, as we saw previously,
declared that it did not exist. The age seconded their efforts,
and banished beauty, so far as human effort could succeed in
doing so, from the face of the earth, and the form of man. To
powder the hair, to patch the cheek, to hoop the body, to
buckle the foot, were all part and parcel of the same system
which reduced, streets to brick walls, and pictures to brown
stains. One desert of Ugliness was extended before the eyes
of mankind ; and their pursuit of the beautiful, so recklessly
continued, received unexpected consummation in high-heeled
shoes and periwigs, — Gower Street, and Gaspar Poussin.

§ 13. Eeaction from this state was inevitable, if any true life
was Icflt in the races of mankind ; and, accordingly, though still
forced, by rule and fashion, to the producing and wearing all
that is ugly, men steal out, half-ashamed of themselves for doing
so, to the fields and mountains ; and, finding among these the
color, and liberty, and variety, and power, which are for ever
grateful to them, delight in these to an extent never before
known ; rejoice in all the wildest shattering of the mountain
side, as an opposition to Gower Street ; gaze in a rapt manner
at sunsets and sunrises, to see there the blue, and gold, and
purple, which glow for them no longer on knight's armor or
temple porch ; and gather with care out of the fields> into their

VOL. in.] OV IKHIBBV MJ^WMCXPJL 261

blotted herbaria, the flowers which the five oxdess of architec*
ture Lave banished from their doors and casements*

The absence of care for personal beanty , which S i^ ^ BiadBin
is another great charaeteristic of the age, adds to omn,^^ ^
this feeling in a twofold waj : first, by turning all reverent
thonghts awaj from human nature ; and making ns think
of men as ridiculous or uglj creatures, getting through the
world as well as thej can, and spoiling it in doing so ; not
ruling it in a kingly way and crowning all its loveliness. In
the Middle Ages hardly anything but vice could be caricatured,
because virtue was always visibly and personally noble r now
virtue itself is apt to inhabit such poor human bodies, that no
aspect of it is invulnerable to jest ; and for all fairness wo
have to seek to the flowers, for all sublimity, to the hills.

The same want of care operates, in another way, by lower-
ing the standard of health, increasing the susceptibility to
nervous or sentimental impressions, and thus adding to the
other powers of nature over us whatever charm may be felt
in Ler fostering the melancholy fancies of brooding idleness.

It is not, however, only to existing inanimate S 18. & Eoman-
nature that our want of beauty in person and dress of Uie^'u
has driven us. The imagination of it, as it was seen in our
ancestors, haunts us continually ; and while we yield to the
present foshions, or act in accordance with the dullest modem
principles of economy and utility, we look fondly back to the
manners of the ages of chivalry, and delight in painting, to the
fancy, the fashions we pretend to despise, and the splendors
we think it wise to abandon. The furniture and personages
of our romance are sought, when the writer desires to please
most easily, in the centuries which we profess to have surpassed
in everything ; the art which takes us into the present times is
considered as both daring and degraded ; and while the weak-
est words please us, and are regarded as poetry, which recall
the manners of our forefathers, or of strangers, it is only as fami-
liar and vulgar that we accept the description of our own.

In this we are wholly different from all the races that pre-
ceded us. All other nations havef regarded their ancestors with
reverence as saints or heroes ; but liave nevertheless thought
their own deeds and ways of life the fitting subjects for their

Wi OF MODSBir tAVDflCAPM. [PABT XT.

arta of pdntlng or of vene. We, on tbe eontnuy^ regsrd our
aaeeston as foolish and wicked, bnt yet find'onr chief artislac
pleasures in descriptions of their ways of life.

The Greeks and medisevals honored, bnt did not imitate,
their forefathers ; we imitate, bnt do not honor.
I ic «i lute- With this romantic love of beauty, forced to seek
rMt la •deoeo. j^^ history, and in external nature, the satisfaction it
cannot find in ordinary life, we mingle a more rational passion,
the due and just result of newly awakened powers of attention.
Whatever may first lead us to the scrutiny of natural objects,
that scrutiny never fails of its reward. Unquestionably they
are intended to be regarded by us with both reverence and
delight ; and every hour we give to them renders their beauty
more apparent, and their interest more engrossing. Natural
science — which can hardly be considered to have existea
before modem times— rendering our knowledge fruitful in
accumulation and exquisite in accuracy, has acted for good
or evil, according to the temper of the mind which received
it ; and though it has hardened the faithlessness of the dull
and proud, has shown new grounds for reverence to hearts
T. Fen of war. which were thoughtful and humble. The neglect of
the art of war, while it has somewhat weakened and deformed
the body,* has given us leisure and opportunity for studies to
which, before, time and space were equally wanting ; lives
which once were early wasted on the battle field are now
passed usefully in the study ; nations which exhausted them-
selves in annual warfare now dispute with each other the
discovery of new planets ; and the serene philosopher dis-
sects the plants, and analyzes the dust, of lands which were
of old only traversed by the knight in hasty march, or by the
borderer in heedless rapine.

§ 17. The elements of progress and decline being thus
strangely mingled in the modern mind, we might beforehand
anticipate that one of the notable characters of our art would be

* Of course this is only meant of the modem citizen or country gentleman,
as compared with a citizen of Sparta or old Florence, I leave it to others to
say whether the " neglect of the art of war " may or may not, in a yet
more fatal sense, be predicated of the English nation. War, without art,
we seem, with God's help, able still to wage nobly.

VOL. HI.] OF MODKRW LAKDSCAPX. 263

its inconsistency ; tbat efforts wonld be made in eyerjr direction,
and arrested bj every conceivable cause and manner of failure ;
that in all we did, it would become next to impossible to distin-
guish accurately the grounds. for praise or for regret; that all
previous canons of practice and methods of thought would be
gradually overthrown, and criticism continually deiied by suc-
cesses VI hich no one had expected, and sentiments which no one
could define.

§ 18. Accordingly, while, in our inquiries into Greek and me-
diaeval art, I was able to describe, in general terms, what all
men did or felt, I find now many characters in many men ; some,
it seems to me, founded on the inferior and evanescent princi-
ples of modernism, on its recklessness, impatience, or faithless-
ness ; others founded on its science, its new affection for nature,
its love of openness and liberty. And among all these charac-
ters, good or evil, I see that some, remaining to us from old or
transitional periods, do not properly belong to as, and will soon
fade away ; and others, though not yet distinctly developed, are
yet properly our own, and likely to grow forward into greater
strength.

For instance : our reprobation of bright color is, I think, for
the most part, mere affectation, and must soon be done away
with. Vulgarity, dulness, or impiety, will indeed always ex-
press themselves through art in brown and grey, as in Rem-
brandt, Oaravaggio, and Salvator ; but we are not wholly vul-
gar, dull, or impious ; nor, as modems, are we necessarily
obliged to continue so in anywise. Our greatest men, whether
sad or gay, still delight, like the great men of all ages, in bril-
liant hues. The coloring of Scott and Byron is full and pure ;
that of IJ.eats and Tennyson rich even to excess. Our practical
failures in coloring are merely the necessary consequences of
our prolonged want of practice during the periods of Renaissance
affectation and ignorance ; and the only durable difference be-
tween old and modern coloring, is the acceptance of certain
hues, by the modern, which please him by expressing that me-
lancholy peculiar to his more reflective or sentimental character,
and the greater variety of them necessary to express his greater
science.

§ 19. Again : if we ever become wise enough to dress consis-

264 07 MODIBN LAND80APX. [PABT IT.

tentlj and grmcefulty, to make health a principal object in edu-
cation, and to render our streets beautiful with art, the external
charm of past history will in great measure disappear. There
is no essential reason, because we live after the fatal seventeenth
century, that we should never again be able to confess interest in
sculpture, or see brightness in embroidery ; nor, because now
we choose to make the night deadly with our pleasures, and the
day with our labors, prolonging the dance till dawn, and the
toil to twilight, that we should never again learn how rightly to
employ the sacred trusts of strength, beauty, and time. What-
ever external charm attaches itself to the past, woul4 then be
seen in proper subordination to the brightness of present life ;
and the elements of romance would exist, in the earlier ages,
only in the attraction which must generally belong to whatever
is unfamiliar ; in the reverence which a noble nation always
pays to its ancestors ; and in the enchanted light which races,
like individuals, must perceive in looking back to the days of
their cliildhood.

§ 20. Again : the peculiar levity with which natural scenery
is regarded by a large number of modem minds cannot be consi-
dered as entirely characteristic of the age, inasmuch as it never
can belong to its greatest intellects. Men of any high mental
power must be serious, whether in ancient or modem days :
a certain degree of reverence for fair scenery is found in all our
great writers without exception, — even the one who has mad^
us laugh oftenest, taking us to the valley of Ghamouni, and to '
the sea beach, there to give peace after suffering, and change re-
venge into pity.* It is only the dull, the uneducated, or the
worldly, whom it is painful to meet on the hill sides ; and levi-
ty, as a ruling character, cannot be ascribed to the whole nation,
but only to its holiday-making apprentices, and its House of
Commons.

§ 21. We need not, therefore, expect to find any single poet
or painter representing the entire group of powers, weaknesses,
and inconsistent instincts which govern or confuse our modern
life. But we may expect that in the man who seems to be given
by^Providence as the type of the age (as Homer and Dante were

* See David Copperfield, chap. Iv. and Iviii

TOL. III.] OP MODERN LANDSCAPE. 266

given, as tlie types of classical and mediaeval mind), we shall
find whatever is fruitful and substantial to be completely pre-
sent, together with those of our weaknesses, which are in-
deed nationally characteristic, and compatible with general
greatness of mind ; just as the weak love of fences, and dislike
of mountains, were found compatible with Dante's greatness in
other respects.

§ 22. Farther : as the admiration of mankind is found, in
our times, to have in great part passed from men to mountains,
and from human emotion to natural phenomena, we may anti-
cipate that the great strength of art will also be warped in this
direction ; with this notable result for us, that whereas the
greatest painters or painter of classical and mediaeval periods,
being wholly devoted to the representation of humanity, fur-
nished us with but little to examine in landscape, the greatest
painters or painter of modern times will in all probability be
devoted to landscape principally; and farther, because in
representing human emotion words surpass painting, but in
representing natural scenery painting surpasses words, we may
anticipate also that the painter and poet (for convenience* sake
I here use the words in opposition) will somewhat change their
relations of rank in illustrating the mind of the age ; that the
painter will become of more importance, the poet of less ; and
that the relations between the men who are the types and first-
fruits of the age in word and work, — namely, Scott and Tur-
ner, — will be, in many curious respects, different from those
between Homer and Phidias, or Dante and Giotto.

It is this relation which we have now to examine.

§ 23. And, first, I think it probable that many readers may
be sui-prised at my calling Scott the great representative of
the mind of the age in literature. Those who can perceive
the intense penetrative depth of Wordsworth, and the exquisite
finish and melodious power of Tennyson, may be offended at
my placing in higher rank that poetry of careless glance, and
reckless rhyme, in which Scott poured out the fancies of his
youth ; and those who are familiar with the subtle analysis of
the French novelists, or who have in any wise submitted them-
selves to the influence of German philosophy, may be equally
indignant at my ascribing a principality to Scott among the

VOL. III. 12

260 OF MODERN LAND8CAPK. [PART IV.

literary men of Europe, in an age which has prodaeed De
Balzac and Goethe.

So also in painting, those who are acquainted with the
sentimental efforts made at present hj the German religions
and historical schools, and with the disciplined power and
learning of the French, will think it heyond all explanation
absurd to call a painter of light water-color landscapes, eighteen
inches hy twelve, the first representative of the arts of the age.
I can on] J crave the reader's patience, and his due considera-
tion of the following reasons for my doing so, together with
those advanced in the farther course of the work.

§ 24. I believe the first test of a truly great man is his
humility. I do not mean, by humility, doubt of his own
power, or hesitation in speaking of his opinions ; but a right
understanding of the relation between what Ae can do and say,
and the rest of the world's sayings and doings. All great men
not only know their busmess, but usually know that they
know it ; and are not only right in their main opinions, but
they usually know that they are right in them ; only, they do
not think much of themselves on that account. Amolfo knows
he can build a good dome at Florence ; Albert Durer writes
calmly to one who had found fault with his work, " It cannot
be better done ;" Sir Isaac Newton knows that he has worked
out a problem or two that would have puzzled anybody else ;
—only they do not expect their fellow-men therefore to fail
down and worship them ; they have a curious under-sense of
powerlessness, feeling that the greatness is not in them, but
through them ; that they could not do or be anything else than
God made them. And they see something divine and God-
made in every other man they meet, and are endlessly, fool-
ishly, incredibly merciful.

§ 25. Now, I find among the men of the present age, as far
as I know them, this character in Scott and Turner pre-emi-
nently ; I am not sure if it is not in them alone. I do not find
Scott talking about the dignity of literature, nor Turner about
the dignity of painting. They do their work, feeling that they
cannot well help it ; the story must be told, and the effect put
down ; and if people like it, well and good ; and if not, the
world will not be much the worse.

VOL. III.] OF MODERN LANDSCAPE. 267

I believe a very different impression of their estimate of
themselves and their doings will be received by any one who
reads the conversations of Wordsworth or Goethe. The
slightest manifestation of ^ jealousy or self-complacency is
enough to mark a second-rate character of the intellect ; and I
fear that, especially in Goethe, such manifestations are neither
few nor slight.

§ 26. Connected with this general humility is the total
absence of affectation in these men, — that is to say, of any
assumption of manner or behavior in their work, in order to
attract attention. Not but that they are mannerists both.
Scott's verse is strongly mannered, and Turner's oil painting ;
but the manner of it is necessitated by the feelings of the men,
entirely natural to both, never exaggerated for the sake of
show. I hardly know any other literary or pictorial work of
the day which is not in some degree affected. I am afraid
Wordsworth was often affected in his simplicity, and De Balzac
in his finish. Many fine French writers are affected in their
reserve, and full of stage tricks in placing of sentences. It is
lucky if in German writers we ever find so much as a sentence
without affectation. I know no painters without it, except one
or two Pre-Baphaelites (chiefly Holman Hunt), and some sim-
ple water-color painters, as William Hunt, William Turner of
Oxford, and the late George Bobson ; but these last have no
invention, and therefore by our fourth canon. Chap. in. sec.
21., are excluded &om the first rank of artists ; and of the
Pre-Baphaelites there is here no question, as they in no wise
represent the modem school.

§ 27. Again : another very important, though not infallible,
test of greatness is, as we have often said, the appearance
of Ease with which the thing is done. It may be that, as with
Dante and Leonardo, the finish given to the work effaces the
evidence of ease ; but where the ease is manifest, as in Scott,
Turner, and Tintoret ; and the thing done is very noble, it is
a strong reason for placing the men above those who confes-
sedly work with great pains. Scott writing his chapter or
two before breakfast — not retouching. Turner finishing a whole
drawing in a forenoon before he goes out to shoot (providing
always the chapter and drawing be good), are instantly to be

298 OF MODBRH LANDBOAFK. [fART IT.

set abore men who confessedlj have spent the day over the
work, and think the hours well spent if it has been a little
mended between sunrise and sunset. Indeed, it is no use for
men to think to appear great bj working fast, dashing, and
scrawling; the thing thej do must be good and great, cost
what time it maj ; but if it he so, and thej have honestlj and
unaffectedly- done it with no effort, it is probablj a greater and
better thing than the result of the hardest efforts of others.

§ 28. Then, as touching the kind of work done by these two
men, the more I think of it I find this conclusion more im-
pressed upon me, — that the greatest thing a human soul ever
does in this world is to gee something, and tell what it saw in a
plain way. Hundreds of people can talk for one who can
think, but thousands can think for one who can see. To see
clearly is poetry, prophecy, and religion, — all in one.

Therefore, finding the world of Literature more or less
divided into Thinkers and Seers, I believe we shall find also
that the Seers are wholly the greater race of the two. A true
Thinker, who has practical purpose in his thinking, and is
sincere, as Plato, or Carlyle, or Helps, becomes in some sort a
seer, and must be always of infinite use in his generation ; but
an affected Thinker, who supposes his thinking of any other
importance than as it tends to work, is about the vainest kind
of person that can be found in the occupied classes. Nay, I
believe that metaphysicians and philosophers are, on the whole,
the greatest troubles the world has got to deal with ; and that
while a tyrant or bad man is of some use in teaching people
submission or indignation, and a thoroughly idle man is only
harmful in setting an idle example, and communicating to
other lazy people his own lazy misunderstandings, busy meta-
physicians are always entangling good and active people, and
weaving cobwebs among the finest wheels of the world's busi-
ness ; and are as much as possible, by all prudent persons, to
be brushed out of their way, like spiders, and the meshed
weed that has got into the Cambridgeshire canals, and other
such impediments to barges and business. And if we thus
clear the metaphysical element out of modem literature, we
shall find its bulk amazingly diminished, and the cfeiims of the
remaining writers, or of those whom we have thinned by

TOU in.] OF MODERN LANDSCAPE. 269

this abstraction of their straw stuffing, much more easily
adjusted.*

§ 29. Again : the mass of sentimental literature, concerned^
with the analysis and description of emotion, headed by the
poetry of Byron, is altogether of lower rank than the literature
which merely describes what it saw. The true Seer always
feels as intensely as any one else ; but he does not much
describe his feelings. He tells you whom he met, and what
they said ; leayes you to make out> from that, what they feel,
and what he feels, but goes into little detail. And, generally
speaking, pathetic writing and careful explanation of passion
are quite easy, compared with this plain recording of what
people said or did, or with the right invention of what they are
likely to say and do ; for this reason, that to inrent a story, or
admirably and thoroughly tell any part of a story, it is neces-
sary to grasp the entire mind of every personage concerned in
it, and know precisely how they would be affected by what
happens; which to do requires a colossal intellect; but to
describe a separate emotion delicately, it is only needed that
one should feel it oneself; and thousands of people are capable
of feeling this or that noble emotion, for one who is able to
enter into all the feelings of somebody sitting on the other side
of the table. Even, therefore, when this sentimental literature
is first rate, as in passages of Byron, Tennyson, and Keats, it
ought not to be ranked so high as the Creative ; and though
perfection, even in narrow fields, is perhaps as rare as in the
wider, and it may be as long before we have another In Memo-
riam as another Guy Mannering, I unhesitatingly receive as a
greater manifestation of power the right invention of a few
sentences spoken by Pleydell and Mannering across their
supper-table, than the most tender and passionate melodies of
the self-examining verse.

* Observe, I do not speak thus of metaphysioB because I have no plea-
sure in them. When I speak contemptuously of philology, it may be
answered me, that I am a bad scholar; but I cannot be so answered
touching metaphysics, for every one conversant with such Subjects may see
that I have strong inclination that way, which would, indeed, have led me
far astray long ago, if I had not learned also some use of my hands, eyes,
and feet

870 OF MODBBN LANDSCAPE. [PABT IV.

§ 30. Having, therefore, cast metaphysical writers out of our
way, and sentimental writers into the second rank, I do not
think Scott's supremacy among those who remain will any
more be doubtful ; nor would it, perhaps, have been doubtful
before, had it not been encumbered by innumerable faults and
weaknesses. But it is pre-eminently in these faults and weak-
nesses that Scott is representative of the mind of his age : and
because he is the greatest man born amongst us, and intended
for the enduring type of us, all our principal faults must be laid
on his shoulders, and he must bear down the dark marks to the
latest ages ; while the smaller men, who have some special
work to do, perhaps not so much belonging to this age as lead-
ing out of it to the next, are often kept providentially quit of
the encumbrances which they had not strength to sustain, and
are much smoother and pleasanter to look at, in their way;
only that is a smaller way.

§ 31. Thus, the most startling fault of the age being its
faithlessness, it is necessary that its greatest man should be
faithless. Nothing is more notable or sorrowi^l in Scott's mind
than its incapacity of steady belief in anything. He cannot
even resolve hardily to believe in a ghost, or a water-spirit ;
always explains them away in an apologetic manner, not
believing, all the while, even his own explanation. He never
can clearly ascertain whether there is anything behind the
arras but rats ; never draws sword, and thrusts at it for life or
death ; but goes on looking at it timidly, and saying, '' it must
be the wind," He is educated a Presbyterian, and remains
one, because it is the most sensible thing he can do if he is to
live in Edinburgh ; but he thinks Romanism more picturesque,
and profaneness more gentlemanly : does not see that anything
affects human life but love, courage, and destiny ; which are,
indeed, not matters of faith at all, but of sight. Any gods but
those are very misty in outline to him ; and when the love is
laid ghastly in poor Charlotte's coffin ; and the courage is no
more of use, — the pen having fallen from between the fingers ;
and destiny is sealing the scroll, — the God-light is dim in the
tears that fall on it.

He is in all this the epitome of his epoch.

§ 32. Again : as another notable weakness of the age is its

VOL. III.] OF MODERN LANDSCAPE. 27l

habit of looking back, in a romantic and passionate idleness, to
the past ages, not understanding them all the while, nor really
desiring to understand them, so Scott gives up nearly the half
of his intellectual power to a fond, yet purposeless, dreaming
over the past, and spends half his literary labors in endeavors
to revive it, not in reality, but on the stage of fiction ; endeavors
which were the best of the kind that modernism made, but still
successful only so far as Scott put, under the old armor, the
everlasting human nature which he knew ; and totally unsuc-
cess^l, 60 far as concerned the painting of the aimor itself,
which he knew not. The excellence of Scott's work is
precisely in proportion to the degree in which it is sketched
from present nature. His familiar life is inimitable ; his quiet
scenes of introductory conversation, as the beginning of Rob
Roy and Redgauntlet, and all his living Scotch charactei-s,
mean or noble, from Andrew Fairservlce to Jeanie Deans, are
simply right, and can never be bettered. But his romance and
antiquarianusm, his knighthood and monkery, are all false, and
he knows them to be false ; does not care to make them
earnest ; enjoys them for their strangeness, but laughs at his
own antiquarianism, all through his own third novel, — ^with
exquisite modesty indeed, but with total misunderstanding of
the funetion of an Antiquary. He does not see how anything
is to be got out of the past but confusion, old iron on drawing-
room chairs, and serious inconvenience to Dr. Heavysteme.

§ 33. Again : more than any age that had preceded it, ours
had been ignorant of the meaning of the word ** Art." It had
not a single fixed principle, and what unfixed principles it
worked upon were all wrong. It was necessary that Scott
should know nothing of art. He neither cared for painting nor
sculpture, and was totally incapable of forming a judgment
about them. He had some confused love of Gothic architec-
ture, because it was dark, picturesque, old, and like nature ;
but could not tell the worst from the best, and built for himself
perhaps the most incongruous and ugly pile that gentlemanly
modernism ever designed ; marking, in the most curious and
subtle way, that mingling of reverence with irreverence which
is so striking in the age ; he reverences Melrose, yet casts one
of its piscinas, puts a modem steel grate into it, and makes it

a

272 OF MODERN LANDSCAPE. [p ART IV.

his fireplace. Like all pare modems, he supposes the Gothic
barbarous, notwithstanding his love of it; admires, in an
equally ignorant way, totally opposite styles ; is delighted
with the new town of Edinburgh; mistakes its dulness for
purity of taste, and actually compares it, in its deathful for-
mality of street, as contrasted with the rudeness of the old
town, to Britomart taking off her armor

§ 34. Again : as in reverence and irreverence, so in levity
and melancholy, we saw that the spirit of the age was strangely
interwoven. Therefore, also, it is necessary that Scott should
be light, careless, uneamest, and yet eminently sorrowful.
Throughout all his work there is no evidence of any purpose
but to while away the hour. His life had no other object than
the pleasure of the instant, and the establishing of a family
name. All his thoughts were, in their outcome and end, less
than nothing, and vanity. And yet, of all poetry that I know,
none is so sorrowful as Scott's. Other great masters are
pathetic in a resolute and predetermined way, when they
choose; but, in their own minds, are evidently stem, or
hopeful, or serene; never really melancholy. Even Byron
is rather sulky and desperate than melancholy ; Xeats is sad
because he is sickly ; Shelley because he is impious ; but Scott
is inherently and consistently sad. Around all his power, and
brightness, and enjoyment of eye and heart, the far-away
JEolian knell is for ever sounding ; there is not one of those
loving or laughing glances of his but it is brighter for the £lm
of tears ; his mind is like one of his own hill rivers, — ^it is
white, and flashes in the sun fairly, careless, as it seems, and
hasty in its going, but

" Far beneath, where slow they creep
From pool to eddy, dark and deep,
Where alders moist, and willows weep^
Ton hear her streams repine."

Life begins to pass from him very early ; and while Homer
sings cheerfully in his blindness, and Dante retains his courage,
and rejoices in hope of Paradise, through all his exile, Scott,
yet hardly past his youth, lies pensive in the sweet sunshine
and among the harvest of his native hills.

^ | ^J H, " 'n' ■ H M

VOL. III.] OF M0D3SRN LANDSCAPS. 2^1

" Blackford, on whose nncnltnred breast.

Among the broom, and thorn, and whin»
^^ ' A truant boy, I sought the nest^

Or listed as I lay at rest,

"While rose on breezes thin
The mnrmor of the city crowd.
And, from his steeple jangling loud,

St Giles's mingling din I
Now, from the snnmut to the plain.
Waves all the hill with yellow gram ;

And on the landscape as I look,
Kongfat do I see michanged remahi^

Save the rude eVi& and chiming brook ;
To me they make a heavy moan
Of early friendships past and gone."

§ 35. SiLcli, then, being the weaknesses which it was neces-
sary that Scott should share with his age, in order that he
mi^ht sufficiently represent it, and such the grounds for sup-
posing him, in spite of all these weaknesses, the greatest
literary man whom that age produced, let us glance at the
principal points in -irhich his yiew of landscape differs from
that of the medisevald.

I shall not endeavor now, as I did with Homer and Dante,
to give a complete analysis of all the feelings which appear to
be traceable in Scott's allusions to landscape scenery, — for
this would require a volume, — ^but only to indicate the main
points of differing character between his temper and Dante's.
Then we will examine in detail, not the landscape of literature,
but that of painting, which must, of course, be equally, or even
in a higher degree, characteristic of the age.

§ 36. And, first, observe Scott's habit of looking at nature
neither as dead, or merely material, in the way that Homer
regards it, nor as altered by his own feelings, in the way that
Keats and Tennyson regard it, but as having an animation
and pathos of its oton, wholly irrespective of human presence
or passion,— ^an animation which Scott loves and sympathizes
with, as he would with a fellow creature, forgetting himself
altogether, and subduing his own humanity before what seems
to him the power of the landscape.

" Yon lonely thorn, — ^would he conld tell
The changes of his parent deU,
12*

274 01* MODKRN LAin>BOAPS. [PABT lY.

Sinoe he, so grey and stabbcyra now,
Wayed in eaoh breeze a eapling bough I
Wonld he could tell, how deep the shade
A thousand mingled branches made,
How broad the shadows of the oak.
How clung the rowan to the rock.
And through the foliage showed his head,
With narrow leaTes and berries red t "

Scott does not dwell on the grej stubbornness of the thorn,
because be himself is at that moment disposed to be dull, or
stubborn ; neither on the cheerful peeping forth of the rowan,
because be himself is that moment cheerful or curious : but
be perceives them both with the kind of interest that he would
take in an old man, or a climbing boj ; forgetting himself, in
sympathy with either age or jouth.

" And from the grassy slope he sees
The Greta flow to meet the Tees,
Where issumg from her darksome bed.
She caught the morning's eastern red.
And through the softening vale below
Boiled her bright waves in rosy glow,
All blushing to her bridal bed,
like some shy maid, in convent bred ;
While linnet, lark, and blackbird gay
Sing forth her nuptial roundelay.'*

Is Scott, or are the persons of his story, gay at this moment 1 Far
from it. Neither Scott nor Bisingbam are happy, but the Greta is;
and all Scott's sympathy is ready for the Greta, on the instant.
§ 37. Observe, therefore, this is not pathetic fallacy ; for
there is no passion in Scott which alters nature. It is not the
lover's passion, making him think the larkspurs are listening
for bis lady's foot ; it is not the miser's passion, making him
think that dead leaves are falling coins ; but it is an inherent and
continual habit of thought, which Scott shares with the modems
in general) being, in fact, nothing else than the instinctive sense
which men must have of the Divine presence, not formed into
distinct belief. In the Greek it created, as we saw, the faith-
fully believed gods of the elements : in Dante and the medise-
vals, it formed the faithfully believed angelic presence ! in the
modern, it creates no perfect form, does not apprehend distinctly
any Divine being or operation ; but only a dim, slightly ere-

VOL. III.] OF M0DBRI7 LANDSCAPE. 275

dited animation in the natural object, accompanied with great
interest and affection for it. This feeling is quite universal
with us, only varying in depth according to the greatness of
the heart that holds it ; and in Scott, being more than usually
intense, and accompanied with infinite affection and quickness
of sympathy, it enables him to conquer all tendencies to the
pathetic fallacy, and, instead of making Nature anywise sub-
ordinate to himself, he makes himself subordinate to her —
follows her lead simply — does not venture to bring his own
cares and thoughts into her pure and quiet presence — ^paints
her in her simple and universal truth, adding no result of
momentary passion or fancy, and appears, therefore, at first
shallower than other poets, being in reality wider and healthier.
'* What am I ? " he says continually, " that I should trouble
this sincere nature with my thoughts. I happen to be
feverish and depressed, and I could see a great many sad and
strange things in those waves and flowers ; but I have no busi-
ness to see such things. Gay Greta ! sweet harebells ! you
are not sad nor strange to most people ; you are but bright
water and blue blossoms ; you shall not be anything else to
me, except that I cannot help thinking you are a little alive, —
no one can help thinking that." And thus, as Nature is bright,
serene, or gloomy, Scott takes her temper, and paints her as
she is ; nothing of himself being ever intruded, except that
far-away Eolian tone> of which he is unconscious ; and some-
times a stray syllable or two, like that about Blackford Hill,
distinctly stating personal feeling, but all the more modestly
for that distinctness, and for the clear consciousness that it is
not the chiming brook, nor the corn-fields, that are sad, but only
the boy that rests by them ; so returning on the instant to
reflect, in all honesty, the image of Nature as she is meant by
aU to be received \ nor that in fine words, but in the first that
come ; nor with comment of far-fetched thoughts, but with
easy thoughts, such as all sensible men ought to have in such
places, only spoken sweetly ; and evidently also with an un-
dercurrent of more profound reflection, which here and there
murmurs for a moment, and which I think, if we choose, we
may continually pierce down to, and drink deeply from, but
which Scott leaves us to seek, or shun, at our pleasure.

276 OF MODSBV I^ANBBCAPS. [PABT IV.

§ 38. And in consequence of this anselfishness and hnmilitj,
Scott's enjoyment of Nature is incomparably greater than that
of any other poet I know. All the rest carry their cares to
her, and begin maundering in her ears about their own affairs.
Tennyson goes out on a furzy comQion, and sees it is calm
autumn sunshine, but it gives him no pleasure. He only
remembers that it is

** Dead calm in that noble breast
Which heayes but with the heaving deep.*

He sees a thundercloud in the evening, and irotdd have
** doted and pored " on it, but cannot, for fear it should bring
the ship bad weather. Keats drinks the beauty of Nature
violently ; but has no more real sympathy with her than he
has with a bottle of claret. His palate is fine ; but he "bursts
joy's grape against it," gets nothing but misery, and a bitter
taste of dregs out of his desperate draught.

Byron and Shelley are nearly the same, only with less truth
of perception, and even more troublesome selfishness. Words-
worth is more like Scott, and understands how to be happy,
but yet cannot altogether rid himself of the sense that he is a
philosopher, and ought always to be saying something wise.
He has also a vague notion that Nature would not be able to get
on well without Wordsworth ; and finds a considerable part of
his pleasure in looking at himself as well as at her. But with
Scott the love is entirely humble and unselfish. " I, Scott, am
nothing, and less than nothing ; but these crags, and heaths,
and clouds, how great they are, how lovely, how for ever to be
beloved, only for their own silent, thoughtless sake !''

§ 39 This pure passion for nature in its abstract being, is
still increased in its intensity by the two elements above taken
notice of, — the love of antiquity, and the love of color and
beautiful form, mortified in our streets, and seeking for food
in the wilderness and the ruin : both feelings, observe,
instinctive in Scott from his childhood, as everything that
makes a man great is always. •

** And well the lonely infiant knew
Beoeeses where the wallflower grew,

VOL* UL] OF MOBBRK LAKDSOAPB. 2*l1

And honeysuckle loved to crawl
Up the long crag and ruined wall.
I deemed such nooks the sweetest shade
The sun in all its round surveyed."

Not that these could have been instinctive in a child in the
Middle Ages. The sentiments of a people increase or diminish
in intensity from generation to generation, — every disposition
of the parents affecting the frame of the mind in their offspring:
the soldier's child is born to be yet more a soldier, and the
politician's to be still more a politician ; even the slightest
colors of sentiment and affection are transmitted to the heirs
of life ; and the crowning expression of the mind of a people is
given when some infant of highest capacity, and sealed with the
impress of this national character, is born where providential
circumstances permit the full development of the powers it has
received straight from Heaven, and the passions which it has
inherited from its fathers.

§ 40 This love of ancientness, and that of natural beauty,
associate themselves also in Scott with the love of liberty,
which was indeed at the root even of all his Jacobite tendencies
in politics. For, putting aside certain predilections about landed
property, and family name, and ** gentlemanliness " in the club
sense of the word, — ^respecting which I do not now inquire
whether they were weak or wise, — the main element which
makes Scott like Cavaliers better than Puritans is, that he
thinks the former Jree and masterful as well as loyal ; and the
Isitterjarmal and slavish. He is loyal, not so much in respect for
law, as in unselfish love for the king ; and his sympathy is
quite as ready for any active borderer who breaks the law, or
fights the king, in what Scott thinks a generous way, as for
the king himself. Eebellion of a rough, free, and bold kind he
is always delighted by ; he only objects to rebellion on prin-
ciple and in form : bare-headed and open-throated treason he
will abet to any extent, but shrinks from it in a peaked hat
and starched collar : nay, politically, he only delights in king-
ship itself, because he looks upon it as the head and centre of
liberty ; and thinks that, keeping hold of a king^s hand, one
may get rid of the cramps and fences of law ; and that the
people may be governed by the whistle, as a Highland clan on

278 OF MODSBH LANDSCAPE. [PABT 17,

tlie open bill-side, instead of being sbnt up into hurdled folds
or bedged fields, as sheep or cattle left masterless.

§ 41. And thus nature, becomes dear to Scott in a threefold
way : dear to him, first, as containing those remains or me-
mories of the past,' which he cannot find in cities,* and giving
hope of Praetorian mound or kuighfs grave, in every green
slope and shade of its desolate places ;— dear, secondly, in its
moorland liberty, which has for him just as high a charm as the
fenced garden had for the mediaeval :

"For I was wayward, bold, and wild,
A Belf-wiUed imp-— a grandame's child ;
Bat, half a plague, and half a jest,
Was still endured, beloyed, caressed :
For me, thus nuitored, dost thon ask
The classic poet*s well-conned task f
Nay, Erskine, nay On the wild hill
Let the wild heathbell flourish still ;
Cherish the tulip, prune the Tine;
But freely let the woodbine twine.
And leave untrimmed the eglantine ,"

— and dear to him, finally, in that perfect beauty, denied alike
in cities and in men, for which every modern heart had begun
at last to thirst, and Scott's, in its freshness and power, of all
men's, most earnestly.

§ 42. And in this love of beauty, observe, that (as I said we
might except) the love of color is a leading element, his
healthy mind being incapable of losing, under any modem false
teaching, its joy in brilliancy of hue. Though not so subtle a
colorist as Dante, which, under the circumstances of the age,
he could not be, he depends quite as much upon color for his
power or pleasure. And, in general, if he does not mean to say
much about things, the one character which he will give is
color, using it with the most perfect mastery and faithfulness,
up to the point of possible modern perception. For instance, if
he has a sea-storm to paint in a single line, he does not, as a
feebler poet would probably have done, use any expression
about the temper or form of the waves ; does not call them
angry or mountainous. He is content to strike them out with
two dashes of Tintoret's favorite colors :

VOL. m.] OF MODERN LANDSCAPE. 2(F9

" The blackening wave is edged with white;
To inch and rock the seamews fly."

There is no form in this. Nay, the main virtue of it is, that
it gets rid of all form. The dark raging of the sea — what
form has that ? But out of the cloud of its darkness those
lightning flashes of the foam, coming at their terrihle intervals
— ^you need no more.

Again : where he has to describe tents mingled among oaks»
he sajs nothing about the foi*m of either tent or tree, but only
gives the two strokes of color :

" Thousand payiliona, white 0$ snow.
Chequered the borough moor below.
Oft giving way, where still there stood
Some relics of the old oak wood.
That darkly huge did intervene.
And tamed the glaring white with greerC*

Again : of tents at Flodden :

*' Next mom the Baron climbed the tower.
To view, afar, the Scottish power,

Eneamped on Flodden edge.
The white pavilions made a show,
like remnants of the winter snow,
Along the dusky ridge.**

Again : of trees mingled with dark rocks :

" Until, where Teith's' young waters roll
Betwixt him and a wooded knoll.
That graced the sahle strath with green.
The chapel of St Bride was seen.**

Again : there is hardly any form, only smoke and color,
in his celebrated description of Edinburgh :

" The wandering eye could o*er it go,
And mark the distant city glow

With gloomy splendor r-ed ;
For on the smoke-wreaths, huge and slow.
That round her sable turrets flow.

The morning beams were shed.

280 OF MODKBN LAMD80APS. [PABT lY.

And tinged them with a lustre proud,
like that which streaks a thunder-cloud.
Such dusky grandeur clothed the height^
Where the huge castle holds its state,

And all the steep slope down,
Whose ridgy back heaves to the sky,
Piled deep and massy, close and high.

Mine own romantic town I
But northward far with purer blace^
On Ochil mountains fell the rays,
And as each heathy top they kissed.
It gleamed a purple amethyst
Tonder the shores of Fife you saw ;
Here Preston Bay and Berwick Law :

And, broad between them rolled.
The gallait Frith the eye might note.
Whose islands on its bosom float,

like emeralds chased in gold."

I do not like to spoil a fine passage by italicizing it ; bat
observe, the only hints at form, given throughout, are in the
somewhat vague words, " ridgy," " massy," ** close," and
''high;" the whole being still more obscured by modern
mystery, in its most tangible form of smoke. But the colon
are all definite ; note the rainbow band of them — gloomy or
dusky red, sable (pure black), amethyst (pure purple), green,
and gold — a noble chord throughout ; and then, moved doubt-
less less by the smoky than the amethystine part of the
group,

« Fits Eustace* heart felt closely pent^
The spur he to his charger lent.

And raised his bridle hand.
And making demivolte in air,
Cried, ' Where's the coward would not dare
To fight for such a land f '"

I need not multiply examples: the reader can easily trace
for himself, through verse familiar to us all, the force of these
color instincts. I will therefore add only two passages, not so
completely known by heart as most of the poems in which
they occur

YOU in.] or MODERN LANDSCAPE. 281

" Twas silence aU. He Uid bim down
Where purple heath profusely strown.
And throatwort, with its azure bell,
And moss and thyme his cushion swelL
There, spent with toil, he listless eyed
The course of Greta's playful tide ;
Beneath her banJoB, now eddying dun,
Now brightly gleaming to the sun,
Ab, dancing over rock and stone.
In yellow light her currents shone.
Matching in hue the favorite gem
Of Albin's mountain ^adem.
Then tired to watch the current play.
He turned his weary eyes away
To where the bank opposing showed
Its huge square cliffs through shaggy wood.
One, prominent above the rest,
Eeared to the sun its pale grey breast;
Around its broken summit grew
The hazel rude, and sable yew ;
A thousand varied lichens dyed
Its waste and weather-beaten side ;
And round its rugged basis lay,
By time or thunder rent away.
Fragments, that, from its frontlet torn,
Were mantled now by verdant thorn.**

§ 43. Note, first, what an exquisite chord of color is given in
the succession of this passage. It begins with purple and
blue ; then passes to gold, or cairngorm color (topaz color) ;
then to pale grey, through which the yellow passes into black ;
and the black, through broken dyes of lichen, into green.
Note, secondly, — what is indeed so manifest throughout Scott's
landscape as hardly to need pointing out, — the love of rocks,
and true understanding of their colors and characters, opposed
as it is in every conceivable way to Dante's hatred and misun-
derstanding of them.

I have already traced, in various places, most of the causes
of this great difference : namely, first, the ruggedness of
northern temper (compare § 8. of the chapter on the Nature of
Gothic in the Stones of Venice) ; then the really greater
beauty of the northern rocks, as noted when we were speaking
of the Apennine limestone ; then the need of finding beauty

282 OV MODERN LAVDBCAPl. [PART IT.

among tbem, if it were to be fonnd anywliere, — no well-
arranged colors being any more to be seen in dress, but only in
rock lichens ; and, finally, the love of irregularity, liberty, and
power, springing up in glorious opposition to laws of prosody,
fashion, and the five orders.

§ 44. The other passage I have to quote is still more inter-
esting ; because it has no Jbrm in it al all except in one word
(chalice), but wholly composes its imagery either of color, or
of that delicate half-believed life which we have seen to be
00 important an element in modem landscape.

** The summer dawn's reflected hue
To purple changed Loch Katrine hlue ;
Hildly and soft the western breeze
Just kissed the lake ; just stirred the trees ;
And the pleaeed lake, like maiden cay,
TVembled, but dimpled not, for joy;
The mountain-shadows on her breast
Were neither broken nor at rest ;
In bright uncertainty they lie,
Like future joys to Fancy's eye.
The water-lily to the light
Her chalice reared of silyer bright:
The doe awoke, and to the lawn,
Begenmied with dew-drops, led her fawn ;
The grey mist left the mountain side ;
The torrent showed its glistening pride;
Inyisible in flecked sky,
The lark sent down her revelry ;
The blackbird and the speckled thrush
Qood-morrow gave from brake and bush;
In answer cooed the cushat dove
Her notes of peace, and rest, and love."

Two more considerations are, however, suggested by the
above passage. The first, that the love of natural history, ex-
cited by the continual attention now given to all wild land-
scape, heightens reciprocally the interest of that landscape, and
becomes an important element in Scott's description, leading
him to finish, down to the minutest speckling of breast, and
slightest shade of attributed emotion, the portraiture of birds
and animals ; in strange opposition to Homer's slightly named
<' sea-crows, who have care of the works of the sea," and

VOL. III.] 07 MODERN LANDSCAPE. 283

Dante's singing-birds, of undefined species. Compare carefully
a passage, too long to'^be quoted, — the 2nd and 3rd stanzas of
canto VI. of Rokeby.

§ 45. The second, and the last point I have to note, is Scott's
habit of drawing a slight moral from every scene, just enough
to excuse to his conscience his want of definite religious feel-
ing ; and that this slight moral is almost always melancholy.
Here he has stopped short without entirely expressing it —

" The mountaiii shadows

. lie
like future joys to Fancy's eye."

His completed thought would be, that those foture joys, like
the mountain shadows, were never to be attained. It occurs
fully uttered in many other places. He seems to have been
constantly rebuking his own worldly pride and vanity, but
never purposefully :

"The foam-globes on her eddies ride^
Thick as the schemes of human pride
That down life's current drive amain.
As frail, as frothy, and as yain."

''Foxglove, and nightshade, side by side.
Emblems of punishment and pride."

''Her dark eye flashed ; she paused and sighed ; —
* Ah, what have I to do with pride !' "

And hear the thought he gathers from the sunset (noting
first the Tumerian color, — as usual, its principal element) :

"The sultry summer day is done.
The western hills have hid the sun.
But mountain peak and village spire
Retain reflection of his Are.
Old Barnard's towers are purple stiU,
To those that gaze from Toller Hill ;
Distant and high the tower of Bowea
like steel upon the anvil glows ;
And Stanmore's ridge, behind that lay.
Rich with the spoils of parting day.
In crimson and in gold arrayed.
Streaks yet awhile the closing shade;
Then slow resigns to darkening heaven
The tints which brighter hoars hod given.

284 or MODERN LANDSCAPE. [PART IT.

Thus, aged men, full loth and Blow,
The yanities of life forego,
And ooant their youthfiil follies o'er
Till Memory lends her light no more."

That is, as fiur RB I remember, one of the most finidied pieces
of sunset he has ^ven ; and it has a wofnl moral ; yet one
which, with Scott, is inseparable from the scene.
Hark, again:

" Twere sweet to mark the setting day
On Bourhope's lonely top decay ;
And, as it faint and feehle died
On the hroad lake and mountain's side,
To say, * Thus plearares fiide away;
Youth, talents, hoaaty, thus decay.
And leave us dark; forlorn, and grey.' *

And again, hear Bertram :

" Mine be the eve of tropic sun :
With disk like battle target rad.
He rushes to his burning bed,
Dyes the wide wave with bloody lights
Then sinks at once ; and all is night"

In all places of this kind, where a passing thought is sug-
gested by some external scene, that thought is at once a slight
and sad one. Scott's deeper moral sense is marked in the
conduct of his stories, and in casual reflections or exclamations
arising out of their plot, aud therefore sincerelj uttered ; as
that of Marmion :

** Oh, what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive!"

But the reflections which are founded, not on events, but on
scenes, are, for the most part, shallow, partly insincere, and, as
far as sincere, sorrowful. This habit of ineffective dreaming
and moralizing over passing scenes, of which the earliest type
I know is given in Jaques, is, as aforesaid, usually the satis-
faction made to our modern consciences for the want of* a
sincere acknowledgment of God in nature : and Shakspere has
marked it as the characteristic of a mind '< compact of jars '*

VOL. HI.] OF MODBRN LAKD80APX. 3B5

(Act II. Sc. VII., As You Like It). That description attaches
but too accurately to all the moods which we have traced in
the moderns generally, and in Scott as the first representative
of them ; and the question now is, what this love of landscape,
so composed, is likely to lead us. to, and what use can be made
of it.

We began our investigation, it will be remembered, in order
to determine whether landscape-painting was worth studying
or not. We have now reviewed the three principal phases
of temper in the civilized human race, and we find that land-
scape has been mostly disregarded by great men, or cast into
a second place, until now ; and that now it seems dear to us,
partly in consequence of our faults, and partly owing to acci-
dental circumstances, soon, in all likelihood, to pass away :
and there seems great room for question still, whether our love
of it is a permanent and healthy feeling, or only a healthy
crisis in a generally diseased state of mind. If the former, ,
society will for ever hereafter be affected by its results ; and
Turner, the first great landscape painter, must take a place in
the history of nations corresponding in art accurately to that
of Bacon in philosophy ; — Bacon having first opened the study
of the laws of material nature, when, formerly, men had
thought only of the laws of human mind ; and Turner having
first opened the study of the aspect of material nature, when,
before, men had thought only of the aspect of the human form.
Whether, therefore, the love of landscape be trivial and tran-
sient, or important and permanent, it now becomes necessary
to consider. We have, I think, data enough before us for the
solution of the question, and we will enter upon it, accord-
ingly, m the following chapter.

286 m MORAL OF LAHDeOAPX. [PA&T IT.

OHAPTEB XVIL

THS MOBAL OF LAND80APK.

§ 1. Supposing then the preceding concloBions coxTeet«
respecting the grounds and component dements of the pleasure
which the modems take in landscape, we have here to con-
sider what are the probable or usual effecU of this pleasure.
Is it a safe or a seductive one 1 Maj we wisely boast of it,
and unhesitatinglj indulge it 1 or is it rather a sentiment to be
^ despised when it is slight, and condemned when it is intense ;
a feeling which disinclines us to labor, and confuses us in
thought; a J07 onlj to the inactive and the visionary, incom-
patible with the duties of life, and the accuracies of reflection %

§ 2. It seems to me that, as matters stand at present, there
is considerable ground for the latter opinion. We saw, in the
preceding chapter, that our love of nature had been partly
forced upon us by mistakes in our social economy, and led to
no distinct issues of action or thought. And when we look to
Scott — ^the man who feels it most deeply — ^for some explana-
tion of its effect upon him, we find a curious tone of apology
(as if for involuntary folly) running through his confessions of
such sentiment, and a still more curious inability to define,
beyond a certain point, the character of this emotion. He has
lost the company of his friends among the hills, and turns to
these last for comfort. He says, '' there is a pleasure in the
pain '' consisting in such thoughts

*' Ab oft awake
By lone St Mary's sQent lake;

r

but, when we look for some definition of these thoughts, all
that we are told is, that they compose

VOL. III.] THK MORAL OF LANDSCAPS. 287

" A mingled sentiment
Of resignation and content I"*

a sentiment which, I suppose, many people can attain to on the
loss of their friends, without the help of lakes or mountains ;
while Wordsworth definitely and positively affirms that thought
has nothing whatever to do with the matter, and that though,
in his youth, the cataract and wood <^ haunted him like a pas-
sion," it was without the help of any "remoter charm, hy
thought supplied."

§ 3. There is not, however, any question, hut that hoth Scott
and Wordsworth are here mistaken in their analysis of their
feelings. Their delight, so far from being without thought, is
more than half made up of thought, but of thought in so
curiously languid and neutralized a condition that they cannot
trace it. The thoughts are beaten to a powder so small that
they know not what they are ; they know only that in such
a state they are not good for much, and disdain to call them
thoughts. But the way in which thought, even thus broken,
acts in producing the delight will be understood by glancing
back to §§ 9. and 10. of the tenth chapter, in which we
observed the power of the imagination in exalting any visible
object, by gathering round it, in farther vision, all the facts pro-
perly connected with it; this being, as it were, a spiritual
or second sight, multipljring the power of enjoyment according
to the fulness of the vision. For, indeed, although in all lovely
nature there is, first, an excellent degree of simple beauty,
addressed to the eye alone, yet often what impresses us most
will form but a very small portion of that visible beauty. That
beauty may, for instance, be composed of lovely flowers and
glittering streams, and blue sky, and white clouds ; and yet the
thing that impresses us most, and which we should be sorriest
to lose, may be a thin grey film on the extreme horizon, not so
large, in the space of the scene it occupies, as a piece of gos-
samer on a near at hand bush, nor in any wise prettier to ,
the eye than the gossamer ; but, because the gossamer is known
by us for a little bit of spider's work, and the other grey film is
known to mean a mountain ten thousand feet high, inhabited

* Mannion, Introduction to canto il

288 THE MORAL OF LARDSOAPS. [pART IT.

hj a race of noble monntaineen, we are solemnly impressed bj
the aspect of it ; and jet, all the while the thoughts and know-
ledge which cause us to receive this impression are so obscure
that we are not conscious of them ; we think we are onljr
enjoying the visible scene ; and the very men whose minds are
fullest of such thoughts absolutely deny, as we have just
heard, that they owe their pleasure to anything but the eye,
or that the pleasure consists in anything else than '< Tran-
quillity."

§ 4. And observe, farther, that this comparative Dimness and
Untraceableness of the thoughts which are the sources of our
admiration, is not ajault in the thoughts, at such a time. It is,
on the contrary, a necessary condition of their subordination to
the pleasure of Sight. If the thoughts were more distinct we
should not see so well ; and beginning definitely to think, we
must comparatively cease to see. In the instance just supposed,
as long as we look at the film of mountain or Alp, with only an
obscure consciousness of its being the source of mighty rivers,
that consciousness adds to our sense of its sublimity; and if we
have ever seen the Rhine or the Rhone near their mouths, our
knowledge, so long as it is only obscurely suggested, adds to
our admiration of the Alp ; but once let the idea define itself, —
once let us begin to consider seriously what rivers flow from
that mountain, to trace their course, and to recall determinately
our memories of their distant aspects, — and we cease to behold
the Alp ; or, if we still behold it, it is only as a point in a map
which we are painfully designings or as a subordinate object
which we strive to thrust aside, in order to make room for our
remembrances of Avignon or Rotterdam.

Again : so long as our idea of the multitudes who inhabit the
ravines at its foot remains indistinct, that idea comes to the aid
of all the other associations which increase our delight. But let
it once arrest us, and entice us to follow out some clear course
of thought respecting the causes of the prosperity or misfor-
tune of the Alpine villagers, and the snowy peak again ceases
to be visible, or holds its place only as a white spot upon the
retina, while we pursue our meditations upon the religion or
thjB political economy of the mountaineers.

§ 5. It is thus evident that a curiously balanced condition

VOL. III.] THE MORAL OF LAND8CAPB, . 289

of the powers of mind is necessary to induce full admiration
of any natural scene. Let those powers be themselves inert,
and the mind vacant of knowledge, and destitute of sensibility,
and the external object becomes little moi^ to us than it is to
birds or insects ; we fall into the temper of the down. On
the other hand, let the reasoning powers be shrewd in excess,
the knowledge vast, or sensibility intense, and it will go hard
but that the visible object will suggest so much that it shall be
soon itself forgotten, or become, at the utmost, merely a kind
of key-note to the course of purposeful thought. Newton,
probably, did not perceive whether the apple which suggested
his meditations on gravity was withered or rosy; nor could
Howard be affected by the picturesqueness o^ the architecture
which held the sufferers it was his occupation to relieve.

§ 6. This wandering away in thought from the thing seen to
the business of life, is not, however, peculiar to men of the
highest reasoning powers, or most active benevolence. It
takes place more or less in nearly all persons of average
mental endowment. They see and love what is beautiful, but
forget their admiration of it in following some train of thought
which it suggested, and which is of more personal interest to
them. Suppose that three or four persons come in sight of a
group of pine-trees, not having seen pines for some time. One,
perhaps an engineer, is struck by the manner in which their roots
hold the ground, and sets himself to exaipine their fibres, in a few
minutes retaining little more consciousness of the beauty of the
trees than if he were a rope-maker untwisting the strands of a
cable : to another, the sight of the trees calls up some happy
association, and presently he forgets them, and ^ pursues the
memories they summoned : a third is struck by certain group-
ings of their colors, useful to him as an artist, which he
proceeds immediately to note mechanically for future use,
with as little feeling as a cook setting down the constituents
of a newly discovered dish ; and a fourth, impressed by the
wild coiling of boughs and roots, will begin to change them in
his fancy into dragons and monsters, and lose his grasp of the
scene in fantastic metamorphosis : wliile, in the mind of the
man who has most the power of contemplating the thing itself,
all these perceptions and trains of idea are partially present,

VOL. III. 13

200 THE MORAL OF LANDSCAPS. [PART lY.

not dbtinciljy but in a mingled and perfect bannony. He
will not see the colors of the tree so well as the artist, nor its
fibres so well as the engineer ; bo will not altogether share the
emotion of the sentimentalist, nor the trance of the idealist ;
bnt ffnc}p» and feeling, and perception, and imagination, will
all obscurely meet and balance themselves in bim, and be will
see the pine-trees somewhat in this manner :

" Worthier still of note
Are those fraternal Four of Borrowdale,
Joined in one solemn and capacious grove ;
Huge trunks I and each particular trunk a growth
Of intertwisted fibres serpentine
Up-coiliQg, and invetcratelj convolved ;
Nor uniformed with Phantasy, and looks
That threaten the profane ; a pillared shade.
Upon whose grassless floor of red-brown hue.
By sheddings from the pining umbrage tinged
Perennially, — ^beneath whose sable roof
Of boughs, as if for festal purpose, decked
With unrejoicing berries, ghostly Shapes
May meet at noontide ; Fear and trembling Hope^
Silence and Foresight ; Death the Skeleton,
And lime the Shadow ; there to celebrate,
As in a natural temple scattered o*er
With altars undisturbed of mossy stone.
United worship/'

§ 7. The power, therefore, of thus fully parceimng any
hatural object depends on oar being able to group and fasten
all our fancies about it as a centre, making a garland of thoughts
for it, in which each sepai-ate thought is subdued and shortened
of its own strength, in order to fit it for harmony with others j
the intensity of our enjoyment of the object depending, first,
on its own beauty, and then on the richness of the garland.
And men who have this habit of clustering and harmonizing
their thoughts are a little too apt to look seomftilly upon the
harder workers who tear the bouquet to pieces to examine the
stems. This was the chief narrowness of Wordsworth's mind ;
he could not understiind that to break a rock with a hammer
in search of crystal may sometimes be an act not disgraceful to
human nature, and that to dissect a flower may sometimes be

VOL, III.] THl MOflAL OF LAND8CAFK. 29J

as proper as to dream over it ; whereas all experience goes t^
teach us, that among men of average intellect the most useful
members of society are the dissectors, not the dreamers. It is
not that they love nature or beauty less, but that they love
result, effect, and progress more ; and when we glance broadly
along the starry crowd of benefactors to the human race, and
guides of human thought, we shall find that this dreaming love
of natural beauty — or at least its expression — has been more
or less checked by them all, and subordinated either to hard
work or watching of human nature. Thus in all the classical
and medieval periods, it was, as we have seen, subordinate to
agriculture, war, and religion ; and in the modern period, in
which it has become far more powerful, observe in what per-
sons it is chiefly manifested.

(1.) It Ib subordinate ia

(2.) ItismtenBein

Bacon.

Mrs. Eadclyffe.

Milton.

St. Pierre. •

Johnson.

Shenstone.

Eichardson.

Byron.

Goldsmith.

Shelley.

Young.

Keats.

Newton.

Bums.

Howard.

Eugene Sue.

Fenelon.

George Sand.

Pascal.

Dumas.

§ 8. I have purposely omitted the names of Wordsworth,
Tennyson, and Scott, in the second list, because, glancing at
the two columns as they now stand, we may, I think, draw
some useful conclusions from the high honorableness and dig-
nity of the names on one side, and the comparative slightness
of those on the other, — conclusions which may help us to
a better understanding of Scott and Tennyson themselves.
Glancing, I say, down those columns in their present form, wo
shall at once perceive that the intense love of nature is, in
modern times, characteristic of persons not of the first order
of intellect, but of brilliant imagination, quick sympathy, and
undefined religious principle, suffering also usually under strong

293 THE MORAL OF LANDSCAPE. [PART IV*

and ill-governed passions : while in the same individual it will
he found to vary at different periods, heing, for the most part,
strongest in youth, and associated with force of emotion, and
with indefinite and feehle powers of thought ; also, throughout
life, perhaps developing itself most at times when the mind is
slightly unhinged by love, grief, or some other of the passions.

§ 9. But, on the other hand, while these feelings of delight
in natural objects cannot be construed into signs of the highest
mental powers, or purest moral principles, we see that they
are assuredly indicative of minds above the usual standard of
power, and endowed with sensibilities of great preciousness to
humanity ; so that those who find themselves entirely destitute
of them, must make this want a subject of humiliation, not of
pride. The apathy which cannot perceive beauty is very dif-
ferent from the stem energy which disdains it ; and the cold-
ness of heart which receives no emotion from external nature,
is not to be confounded with the wisdom of purpose which
represses emotion in action. In the case of most men, it is
neither acuteness of the reason, nor breadth of humanity,
which shields them from the impressions of natural scenery,
but rather low anxieties, vain discontents, and mean pleasures ;
and for one who is blinded to the works of God by profound
abstraction or lofty purpose, tens of thousands have their eyes
sealed by vulgar selfishness, and their intelligence crushed by
impious care.

Observe, then : we have, among mankind in general, the
three orders of being; — the lowest, sordid and selfish, which
neither sees nor feels ; the second, noble and sympathetic, but
which sees and feels without concluding or acting ; the third
and highest, which loses sight in resolution, and feeling in
work.*

* The investigation of this rabject becomes, therefore, difficult beyond
all other parts of onr inquiry, since precisely the same sentiments may
arise in different minds from totally opposite causes ; and the extreme of
frivolity may sometimes for a moment desire the same things as the ex-
treme of moral power and dignity. In the following extract from " Maiv
riage/' the sentiment expressed by Lady Juliana (the ineffably foolish and
frivolous heroine of the story) is as nearly as possible what Dante would
^ave felt, under the same circumstances :

VOL. III.] THE MORAL OF LANDSCAPE. 293

Thus, even in Scott and Wordswortli themselves, the love
of nature is more or less associated with their weaknesses.
Scott shows it most in the cruder compositions of his youth,
his perfect powers of mind being displayed only in dialogues
with which description has nothing whatever to do. Words-
worth's distinctive work was a war with pomp and pretence,
and a displ&y of the majesty of simple feelings and humble
hearts, together with high reflective truth in his analysis of the
courses of politics and ways of men; without these, his love of
nature would have been comparatively worthless.

§ 10. " If this be so, it is not well to encourage the observance
of landscape, any more than other ways of dreamily and inef-
fectually spending time ?"

Stay a moment. We have hitherto observed this love of

*'The air was soft and genial; not a cloud stained the bright azure of
th*3 heavens ; and the sun shone out in all his splendor, shedding life and
beauty even over the desolate heath-clad hills of Glenfem. But, after
they had journeyed a few miles, suddenly emerging from the valley, a
scene of matchless beauty burst at once upon the eye. Before them lay
the dark blue waters of Lochmarlie, reflecting, as in a mirror, every sur-
rounding object, and bearing on its placid, transparent bosom a fleet of
herring-boats, the drapery of whose black, suspended nets contrasted, with
picturesque eflFect, the white sails of the larger vessels, which were vainly
spread to catch a breeze. All around, rocks, meadows, woods, and hills
mingled in wild and lovely irregularity.

'^ Kot a breath was stirring, not a sound was heard, save the rushing of
a waterfall, the tinkling of some silver rivulet, or the calm rippling of the
tranquil lake ; now and then, at intervals, the fisherman's Gaelic ditty,
chanted as he lay stretched on the sand in some sunny nook ; or the shrill,
distant sound of childish glee. How delicious to the feeling heart to be-
hold so fnir a scene of unsophisticated nature, and to listen to her voice
alone, breathing the accents of innocence and joy I But none of the party
who now gazed on it had minds capable of being touched with the emo-
tions it was calculati^d to inspire.

" Henry, indeed, was rapturous in his expressions of admiration ; but he
concluded his panegyrics by wondering his brother did not keep a cutter,
and resolving to pass a night on board one of the herring-boats, that he
might eat the fish in perfection.

"Lady Juliana thought it might be very pretty, if, instead of those
frightful rocks and shabby cottages, there could be villas, and gardens, and
lawns, and conservatories, and summer-houses, and statues.

" Misd Bella observed, if it was hers she would cut down the woods, and
level the hills, and have races."

204 THE MORAL 07 LAITDSOAPB. [PART IT.

natural beauty only as it distingnislies one man from anotber,
not as it acts for good or evil en those minds to which it ne-
cessarily belongs. It may, on the whole, distinguish weaker
men from stronger men, and yet in those weaker men may be
of some notable use. It may distinguish Byron from St. Ber-
nard, and Shelley from Sir Isaac Newton, and yet may, per-
haps, be the best thing that Byron and Shelley possess — ^a
saving element in them ; just as a rush may be distinguished
from an oak by its bending, and yet the bending may be the
saving element in the rush, and an admirable gift in it^ place
and way. So that, although St. Bernard journeys all day by
the Lake of Geneva, and asks- at evening " where it is,'' and
Byron learns by it " to love earth only for its earthly sake,"*
it does not follow that Byron, hating men, was the worse for
loving the earth, nor that St. Bernard, loving men, was the
better or wiser for being blind to it. And this will become
still more manifest if we examine somewhat farther into the
nature of this instinct, as characteristic especially of youth.

§ 11. We saw above that Wordsworth described the feeling
as independent of thought, and, in the particular place then
quoted, he therefore speaks of it depreciatingly. But in other
places be does not speak of it depreciatingly, but seems to
think the absence of thought involves a certain nobleness :

" In fiuoh high hour
Of viritatioQ fiom the liying God
Thouffhi was not*'

And he refers to the intense delight which he himself felt, and
which he supposes other men feel, in nature, during their
thoughtless youth, as an intimation of their immortality, and a
joy which indicates their having come fresh from the hand of
God.

Now, if Wordsworth be right in supposing this feeling to be
in some degree common to all men, and most vivid in youth,
we may question if it can be entirely explained as I have now
tried to explain it. For if it entirely depended on multitudes
of ideas, clustering about a beautiful object, it might seem that

* Childe Harold, canto iii st 71.

TOL. in.] THB MORAL OF LAND8CAPB. 295

the yoTiih .could not feel it so strongly as the man, because
the man knows more, and must have more ideas to make the
garland of. Still less can we suppose the pleasure to be of
that melancholy and languid kind, which Scott defines as
** Resignation ** and " Content ;" boys being not distinguished
for cither of those characters, but for eager effort and delight-
some discontent. If Wordsworth is at all right in this matter,
therefore, there must surely be some other element inrtho feel-
ing not yet detected.

§ 12. Now, in a question of this subtle kind, relating to a
period of life when self-examination is rare, and expression im-
perfect, it becomes exceedingly difficult to trace, with any
certainty, the movements of the minds of others, nor always
easy to remember those of our own. I cannot, from observation,
form jsiny decided opinion as to the extent in which this strange
delight in nature influences the hearts of young petsons in
general ; and, in stating what has passed in my own mind, I
do not mean to draw any positive conclusion as to the nature
of the feeling in other children ; but the inquiry is clearly one
in which personal experience is the only safe ground to go
upon, though a narrow one ; and I will make no excuse for
taking about myself with reference to this subject, because,
though there is much egotism in the world, it is often the last
thing a man thinks of doing, — and, though there is much work
to be done in the world, it is often the best thing a man can do,
— to tell the exact truth about the movements of his own mind ;
and there is this farther reason, that, whatever other faculties I
may or may not possess, this gift of taking pleasure in land-
scape I assuredly possess in a greater degree than most men ;
it having been the ruling passion of my life, and the reason for
the choice of its field of labor.

§ 13. The first thing which I remember as an event in life,
was being taken by nay nurse to the brow of Friar's Crag on
Derwcntwater ; the intense joy, mingled with awe, that I had
in looking through the hollows in the mossy roots, over the
crag, into the dark lake, has associated itself more or less with
all twining roots of trees ever since. Two other things I
remember, as, in a sort, beginnings of life ;^-crossing Shapfells
(being let out of the chaise to run up the hills), and going

200 TUE MORAL OF LANDSCAPE. [pART lY.

throngh Glenfarg, near Kinross, in a winter's morning, when
the rocks were hung with icicles; these heing culminating
points in an early life of more travelling than is usually indulged
to a child. In such journeyings, whenever they brought me
near hills, and in all mountain ground and scenery, I had a
pleasure, as early as I can remember, and continuing till I was
eighteen or twenty, infinitely greater than any which has been
since possible to me in anything ; comparable for intensity only
to the joy of a lover in being near a noble and kind mistress,
but no more explicable or definable than that feeling of love
itself. Only thus much I can remember, respecting it, which
is important to our present subject.

§ 14. First : it was never independent of associated thought.
Almost as soon as I could see or hear, I had got reading
enough to give me associations with all kinds of scenery ; and
mountains, in particular, were always partly confused with
those of my favorite book, Scott's Monastery ; so that Glenferg
and nil other glens were more or less enchanted to me, filled
with forms of hesitating creed about Christie of the Clint Hill,
and the monk Eustace ; and with a general presence of White
Lady everywhere. I also genei?ally knew, or was told by my
father and mother, such simple facts of history as were neces-
sary to give more definite and justifiable association to other
• scenes which chiefly interested me, such as the ruins of Loch-
leven and Kenilworth ; and thus my pleasure in mountains or
ruins was never, even in earliest childhood, free from a certain
awe and melancholy, and general sense of the meaning of
death, though in its principal influence, entirely exhilarating
and gladdening.

§ 15. Secondly : it was partly dependent on contrast with
a very simple and unamused mode of general life ; I was bom
in London, and accustomed, for two or three years, to no other
prospect than that of the brick walls over the way ; had no
brothers, nor sisters, nor companions ; and though I could
always make myself happy in a quiet way, the beauty of the
mountains had an additional charm of change and adventure
which a country -bred child would not have felt.

§ 16. Thirdly : there was no definite religious feeling mingled
with it. I partly believed in ghosts and fairies ; but supposed

VOL. uk] the moral of landscape, 297

that angels belonged entirely to the Mosaic dispensation, and
cannot remember anj single thought or feeling connected with
them. I believed that God was in heaven, and could hear me
and see me ; but this gave me neither pleasure nor pain, and I
seldom thought of it at all. I never thought of nature as God's
work, but as a separate fact or existence.

§ 17. Fourthly : it was entirely unaccompanied by powers
of reflection or invention. Every fancy that I had about na-
ture was put into my head by some book ; and I never reflect-
ed about anything till I grew older ; and then, the more I re-
flected, the less nature was precious to me : I could then make
myself happy, by thinking, in the dark, or in the dullest scene-
ry; and the beautiful scenery became less essential to my
pleasure.

§ 18. Fifthly ; it was, according to its strength, inconsistent
with every evil feeling, with spite, anger, covetousness, discon-
tent, and every other hateful passion ; but would associate itself
deeply with every just and noble sorrow, joy, or aflection. It
had not, however, always the power to repress what was incon-
sistent with it ; and, though only after stout contention, might
at last be crushed by what it had partly repressed. And as it
only acted by setting one impulse against another, though it had
much power in moulding the character, it had hardly any in
strengthening it ; it formed temperament, but never instilled
principle; it kept me generally good-humored and kindly,
but could not teach me perseverance or self-denial : what firm-
ness or principle I had was quite independent of it ; and it came
itself nearly as often in the form of a temptation as of a safe-
guard, leading me to ramble over hills when I should have been
learning lessons, and lose days in reveries which I might have
spent in doing kindnesses.

§ 19. Lastly : although there was no definite religious senti-
ment mingled with it, there was a continual perception of Sanc-
tity in the whole of nature, from the slightest thing to the vast-
est ; — an instinctive awe, mixed with delight ; an indefinable
thrill, such as we sometimes imagine to indicate the presence
of a disembodied spirit. I could only feel this perfectly when
I was alone ; and then it would often make me shiver from head
to foot with the joy and fear of it, when after being some -time

13*

298 TB8 MORAL OF LANDSOAFX. [PABT IV.

away from the hills, I first got to the shore of a monntain river,
where the brown water circled among the pebbles, or when 1
saw the first swell of distant land againt the sunset, or the first
low broken wall, covered with monntain moss. I cannot in the
least describe the feeling ; but I do not think this is m j fault,
nor that of the English language, for, I am afraid, no feeling is
describable. If we had to explain even the sense of bodily hun-
ger to a person who had never felt it, we should be hard put to
at for words ; and this joy in nature seemed to me to come of a
sort of heart-hunger, satisfied with the presence of a Great and
Holy Spirit. These feelings remained in their fill intensity
till I was eighteen or twenty, and then, as the reflective and
practical power increased, and the " cares of this world " gain-
ed upon me, faded gradually away, in the manner described by
Wordsworth in his Intimations of Immortality.

§ 20. I cannot, of course, tell how far I am justified in sup-
posing that these sensations may be reasoned upon as common
to children in general. In the same degree they are not of
course common, otherwise children would be, most of them, very
different from what they are in their choice of pleasures. But,
as far as such feelings exist, I apprehend they are more or less
similar in their nature and influence ; only producing different
characters according to the elements with which they are min-
gled. Thus, a very religions child may give up many pleasures
to which its instincts lead it, for the sake of irksome duties ; and
an inventive child would mingle its love of natuve with watch-
fulness of human sayings and doings : but I believe the feel-
ings I have endeavored to describe are the pure landscape-in-
stinct ; and the likelihoods of good or evil resulting from them
may be reasoned upon as generally indicating the usefulness or
danger of the modern love and study of landscape.

§ 21. And, first, observe that the charm of romantic asso-
ciation (§ 14.) can be felt only by the modem European child.
It rises eminently out of the contrast of the beautiful past with
the frightful and monotonous present ; and it depends for its
force on the existence of ruins and traditions, on the remains
of architecture, the traces of battlefields, and the precursorship
of eventful history. The instinct to which it appeals can hard-
ly be felt in America, and every day that either beautifies our

TOL, in.] THE MORAL OF LANDSCAPE. 299

present arehitecture and dress, or overthrows a stone of mediae'
val monument, contributes to weaken it in Europe. Of its in-
fluence on the mind of Turner and Prout, and the permanent
results which, through them, it is likely to effect, I shall have
to speak presently.

§ 22, Again : the influence of surprise in producing the de-
light, is to be noted as a suspicious or evanescent element in it.
Observe, my pleasure was chiefly (§ 19.) when I ^rst got into
beautiful scenery, out of London. The enormous influence of
novelty — ^the way in which it quickens observation, sharpens
sensation, and exalts sentiment — is not half enough taken note
of by us, and is to me a very sorrowful matter. I think that
what Wordsworth speaks of as a glory in the child, because it
has come fresh from God's hands, is in reality nothing more than
the freshness of all things to its newly opened sight. I find that
by keeping long away from hills, I can in great part still
restore the old childish feeling about them ; and the more I live
and work among them, the more it vanishes^

§ 23. This evil is evidently common to all minds ; Words-
worth himself moaming over it in the same poem :

** Custom hangs upon ns, with a weight
Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life.**

And if we grow impatient under it, ai^ seek to recover the men-
tal energy by more quickly repeated and brighter novelty, it is
all over with our enjoyment. There is no cure for this evil,
any more than for the weariness of the imagination already de-
scribed, but in patience and rest : if we try to obtain perpetual
change, change itself will become monotonous ; and then we
are reduced to that old despair, **lf water chokes, what will
you drink after it V* And the two points of practical wisdom
in this matter are, first, to be content with as little novelty as
possible at a time ; and, secondly, to preserve, as much as pos-
sible in the world, the sources of novelty.

§ 24. I say, first, to be content with as little change as possi-
ble. If the attention is awake, and the feelings in proper train,
a turn of a country road, with a cottage beside it, which we
have not seen before, is as much as we need for refreshment ;

800 THX MORAL OF LAKD80APS. [pART IT.

if we liarrj past it» and take two cottages at a time, it is already
too much : hence, to any person wbo has all his senses abont
Lim, a quiet walk along not more than ten or twelve miles of
road a day, is the most amusing of all travelling ; and all tra-
velling becomes dull in exact proportion to its rapidity. Going
by railroad I do not consider as travelling at all ; it is merely
** being sent " to a place, and very little different from becom-
ing a parcel ; the next step to it would of course be telegraphic
transport, of which, however, I suppose it has been truly said
by Octave Feuillet,

**Ilff aurait det ffent auez hetet pour trourer ^a amuBont."*

If we walk more than ten or twelve miles, it breaks up the day
too much ; leaving no time for stopping at the stream sides or
shady banks, or for any work at the end of the day ; besides
that the last few miles are apt to be done in a hurry, and may
then be considered as lost ground. But if, advancing thus slow-
ly, after some days we approach any more interesting scenery,
every yard of the changeful ground becomes precious and pi-
quant ; and the continual increase of hope, and of surrounding
beauty, affords one of the most exquisite enjoyments possible
to the healthy mind ; besides that real knowledge is acquired
of whatever it is the object of travelling to learn, and a certain
sublimity given to all places, so attained, by the true sense of
the spaces of earth that separate them. A man who really
loves travelling would as soon consent to pack a day of such '
happiness into an hour of railroad, as one who loved eating
would agree, if it were possible, to concentrate his dinner into
a pill.

§ 25. And, secondly, I say that it is wisdom to preserve as
much as possible the innocent sources of novelty ; — not definite
inferiorities of one place to another, if such can be done away ;
but differences of manners and customs, of language and archi-
tecture. The greatest effort ought especially to be made by all
wise and far-sighted persons, in the present crisis of civilization,
to enforce the distinction between wholesome reform, and heart-
less abandonment of ancestral custom ; between kindly fellow-
* Scenes et Proverbea. La Crise ; (ScSae en caleche, liors Paris.)

VOL. III.] THE MORAL OF LANDSCAPE. 301

sMp of nation with nation, and ape-like adoption, hj one, of the
habits of another. It is ludicrously awful to see the luxurious
inhabitants of London and Paris rushing over the Continent
(as they say, to see it), and transposing every place, as far as
-lies- in their power, instantly into a likeness of Regent Street
and the Eue de la Paix, which they need not certainly have
come so far to see. Of this evil I shall have more to say here-
after ; meantime I return to our main subject.

§ 26. The next character we have to note in the landscape-
instinct (and on this much stress is to be laid), is its total incon-
sistency with all evil passion ; its absolute contrariety (whether
in the contest it were crushed or not) to all care, hatred, envy,
anxiety, and moroseness. A feeling of this kind is assuredly
not one to be lightly repressed, or treated with contempt.

But how, if it be so, the reader asks, can it be characteristic
of passionate and unprincipled men, like Byron, Shelley, and
such others, and not characteristic of the noblest and most high-
ly principled men ?

First, because it is itself a passion, and therefore likely to be
characteristic of passionate men. Secondly, because it is (§ 18.)
wholly a separate thing from moral principle, and may or may
not be joined to strength of will, or rectitude of purpose* ; only,
this much is always observable in the men whom it character-
izes, that, whatever their faults or failings, they always under-
stand and love noble qualities of character ; they can conceive
(if not certain phases of piety), at all events, self-devotion of
the highest kind ; they delight in all that is good, gracious, and
noble ; and though warped often to take delight also in what is

* Compare the characters of Fleur de Marie and Rigolette, in the Mys-
t^res de Paris. I know no other instance in whioh the two tempers are so
exquisitely delineated and opposed. Read carefully the beautiful pastoral,
in the eighth chapter of the first Part, where Fleur de Marie is first taken
into the fields under Montmartre, and compare it with the sixth of the se-
cond Part, its accurately traced companion sketch, noting carefully Rigo-
lette's " Non, je deteste la campagneJ* She does not, however, dislike flow-
ers or birds : " Cette oaisse de bois, que Rigolette. appellait le jardin de ses
oiseaux, 6tait remplie de terre recouverte de mousse, pendant Thiver. EUe
travaillait auprSs de la fenStre ouverte, i-demi-voilee par nn verdoyant
rideau de pois de senteur roses, de capucines oranges, de yolubilis bleus et
blancs.**

, 802 THB MORAL OF LAKDSCAPl. [pART TV.

dark or degraded, that delight ia mixed with bitter self-i^eproach ;
or else is wanton, careless, or affected, while their delight in
noble things is constant and sincere.

§ 27. Look back to the two lists given above, § 7. I have
not latelj read anything hj Mrs. Raddyffe or George Sand,
and cannot, therefore, take instances from them ; Keats hardly
introdaced human character into his work ; bat glance over the
others, and note the general tone of their conceptions. Take
St. Pierre's Virginia, Bjron's Myrrha, Angiolina, and Marina,
and Eugene Sue*s Fleur de Marie ; and out of the other list
jou will only be able to find Pamela, Clementina, and, I sup-
pose, Clarissa*, to put beside them ; and these will not more
than match Myrrha and Marina ; leaving Fieur de Marie and
Virginia rivalless. Then meditate a little, with all justice and
mercy, over the two groups of names ; and I think you will, at
last, feel that there is a pathos and tenderness of heart among
the lovers of nature in the second list, of which it is nearly im-
possible to estimate either the value or the danger ; that the
sterner consistency of the men in the first may, in great part,
have arisen only from the, to them, most merciful, appointment
of having had religious teaching or disciplined education in their
youth ; while their want of love for nature, whether that love
be originally absent, or artificially repressed, is to none of them
an advantage. Johnson's indolence. Goldsmith's improvidence,
Young's worldliness, Milton's severity, and Bacon's servility,
might all have been less, if they could in anywise have sympa-
thized with Byron's lonely joy in a Jura stormt, or with Shel-
ley's interest in floating paper boats down the Serchio.

§ 28. And then observe, farther, as I kept the names of
Wordsworth and Scott out of the second list, I withdrew, also,
certain names from *the first ; and for this reason, that in all
the men who are named in that list, there is evidently some
degree of love for nature, which may have been originally of

* I have not read Clariasa.

f It might be thought that Young eould have sympathiced with it He
would have made better use of it, but he would not have had the same
delight in it He turns his solitude to good account ; but this is because, to
him, solitude is sorrow, and his real enjoyment would have been of amia-
ble society, and a place at court

VOL. III.] THE MORAL OF LANDSCAPE. 303

more power tlian we suppose, and may have had an infinitely
hallowing and protective influence upon them. But there also
lived certain men of high intellect in that age who had no love
of nature whatever. They do not appear ever to have re-
ceived the smallest sensation of ocular delight from any natu-
ral scene, but would have lived happily all their lives in draw-
ingiooms or studies. And, therefore, in these men we shall be
able to determine, with the greatest chance of accuracy, what
the real influence of natural beauty is, and what the character
of a mind destitute of its love. Take, as conspicuous instan-
ces, Le Sage and Smollett, and you will find, in meditating
over their works, that they are utterly incapable of conceiving
a human soul as endowed with any nobleness whatever ; their
heroes are simply beasts endowed with some degree of human
intellect ; — cunning, false, passionate, reckless, ungrateful, and
abominable, incapablo of noble joy, of noble sorrow, of any
spiritual perception or hope. I said, " beasts with human in-
tellect ;" but neither Gil Bias nor Eoderick Eandom reach,
morally, anything near the level of dogs ; while the delight
which the writers themselves feel in mere filth and pain, with
an unmitigated foulness and cruelty of heart, is just as mani-
fest in every sentence as the distress and indignation with
which pain and injustice are seen by Shelley and Byron.

§ 29. Distinguished from these men by some evidence of
love for nature, yet an evidence much less clear than that for
any of those named even in the first list, stand Cervantes,
Pope, and Moliere. It is not easy to say how much the cha-
racter of these last depended on their epoch and education;
but it is noticeable that the first two agree thus far in temper
with Le Sage and Smollett,— that they delight in dwelling
upon vice, misfortune, or folly, as subjects of amusement;
while yet they are distinguished from Le Sage and Smollett
by capacity of conceiving nobleness of character, only in a
humiliating and hopeless way ; the one representing all chival-
ry as insanity, the other placing the wisdom of man in a serene
and sneering reconciliation of good with evil. Of Moliere I
think very differently. Living in the blindest period of the
world's history, in the most luxurious city, and the most cor-
rupted court, of the time, he yet manifests through all his

304 THa MORAL OF LAND8CAPB. [PART IV.

writings an exquisite natural wisdom ; a capacity for the most
simple enjoyment ; a high sense of all nobleness, honor, and
purity, variously marked throughout his slighter work, but dis-
tinctly made the theme of his two perfect plays — ^the Tartuffe
and Misanthrope ; and in all that he says of art or science he
has an unerring instinct for what is useful and sincere, and
uses his whole power to defend it, with as keen a hatred of
everything affected and vain. And, singular as it may seem,
the first definite lesson read to Europe, in that school of sim-
plicity of which Wordsworth was the supposed originator
among the mountains of Cumberland, was, in fact, given in the
midst of the court of Louis XIV., and by Moliere. The little
canzonet, '*J'aime mieux ma mie," is, I believe, the first
Wordsworthian poem brought forward on philosophical princi-
ples to oppose the schools of art and affectation,

§ 30. I do not know if, by a careful analysis, I could point
out any evidences of a capacity for the love of natural scenery
in Moliere stealing forth through the slightness of his pastor-
als ; but, if not, we must simply set him aside as exceptional,
as a man uniting Wordsworth's philosophy with Le Sage's wit,
turned by circumstances from the observance of natural beauty
to that of human frailty. And thus putting him aside for the
moment, I think we cannot doubt of our main conclusion, that,
though the absence of the love of nature is not an assured con-
demnation, its presence is an invariable sign of goodness of
heart and justness of moral percept- on, though by no means of
moral practice ; that in proportion to the degree in which it
is felt, will prohably be the degree in which all nobleness and
beauty of character will also be felt ; that when it is originally
absent from any mind, that mind is in many other respects
hard, worldly, and degraded ; that where, having been origi-
nally present, it is repressed by art or education, that repres-
sion appears to have been detrimental to the person suffering
it ; and that wherever the feeling exists, it acts for good on
the character to which it belongs, though, as it may often be-
long to characters weak in other respects, it may carelessly be
mistaken for a source of evil in them.

§ 31. And having arrived at this conclusion by a review of
facts, which I hope it will be admitted, whether accurate or

VOL. III.] tBJt MORAL OF LANDSCAPE. S05

not, has at least been candid, these farther considerations may
confirm our belief in its truth. Observe : the whole force of
education, until very lately, has been directed in every possi-
ble way to the destruction of the love of nature. The only
knowledge which has been considered essential among us is
that of words, and, nef^t after it, of the abstract sciences;
while every liking shown by children for simple natural
history has been either violently checked, (if it took an incon-
venient form for the housemaids,) or else scrupulously limited
to hours of play : so that it has really been impossible for any
child earnestly to study the works of God but against its con-
science ; and the love of nature has become inherently the
characteristic of truants and idlers. While also the art of
drawing, which is of more real importance to the human race
than that of writing (because people can hardly draw anything
without being of some use both to themselves and others, and
can hardly wriie anything without wasting their own time and
that of others), — this art of drawing, I say, which on plain and
stem system should be taught to every child, just as writing
' is, — has been so neglected and abused, that there is not one
man in a thousand, even of its professed teachers, who knows
its first principles : and thus it needs much ill-fortune or obsti-
* nacy — much neglect on the part of his teachers, or rebellion
on his own — before a boy can get leave to use his eyes or his
fingers ; sd that those who can use them are for the most part
neglected or rebellious lads — ^runaways and bad scholars — pas-
sionate, erratic, self-willed, and restive against all forms of
education ; while your well-behaved and amiable scholars are
disciplined into blindness and palsy of half their faculties.
Wherein there is at once a notable ground for what difference
we have observed between the lovers of nature and its despis-
ers ; between the somewhat immoral and unrespectable watch-
fulness of the one, and the moral and respectable blindness of
the other.

§ 32. One more argument remains, and that, I believe, an
unanswerable one. As, by the accident of education, the love
of nature has been, among us, associated with wilfulness, so,
by the accident of time, it has been associated with faithless-
ness. I traced, above, the peculiar mode in which this fiuth-

SOG THE MORAL OF LAKDSCAPB. [pART IT.

lessness was indicated ; but I never intended to imply, there-
fore, that it was an invariable concomitant of the love. Be-
cause it happens that, bj various concurrent operations of evil,
we have been led, according to those words of the Greek poet
already quoted, *' to dethrone the gods, and erown the whirl-
wind," it is no reason that we alimild forget there was once a
time whea ** the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind."
And if we now take final and full view of the matter, we shall
find that the love of nature, wherever it has existed, has been
a faithful and sacred element of human feeling ; that is to say,
supposing all circumstances otherwise the same with respect to
two individuals, the oiie who loves nature most will be altoaytt
found to have more faith in God than the other. It is in-
tensely difficult, owing to the confusing and counter influences
which always mingle in the data of the problem, to make this
abstraction fairly ; but so far as we can do it, so far, I boldly
assert, the result is constantly the same : the nature-worship
will be found to bring with it such a sense of the presence and
power of a G-reat Spirit as no mere reasoning can either induce
or controvert; and where that nature- worship) is innocently
pursued,— i.e. with due respect to other claims on time, feeling,
and exertion, and associated with the higher principles of re-
ligion, — ^it becomes the channel of certain sacred truths, which
by no other means can be conveyed.

§ 33. This is not a statement which any investigation is
needed to prove. It comes to us at once from the highest of
all authority. The greater number of the words which are
recorded in Scripture, as directly spoken to men by the lips of
the Deity, are either simple revelations of His law, or special
threatenings, commands, and promises relating to special events.
But two passages of God's speaking, one in the Old and one in
the Kew Testament, possess, it seems to me, a different
character from any of the rest, having been uttered, the one to
effect the last necessary change in the mind of a nllin whose
piety was in other respects perfect ; and the other, as the first
statement to all men of the principles of Christianity by Christ
Himself — I jnean the 38th to 41st chapters of the book of Job,
and the Sermon on the Mount. Now the first of these passages
is, from beginning to end, nothing else than a direction of the

Vol. III.] THE MORAL OF LANDSCAPK, 30*7

mind which was to be perfected to humble observance of the
works of God in nature. And the other consists only in the
inculcation of three things : Ist, right conduct ; 2nd, looking
for eternal life ; 3rd, trusting God, through watchfulness of His
dealings with His creation : and the entire contents of the book
of Job, and of the Sermon on the Mount, will be found resolv-
able simply into these three requirements from all men, — ^that
they should act rightly, hope for heaven, and watch God's
wonders and work in the earth ; the right conduct being always
summed up under the three heads of justice, mercy , and truth,
and no mention of any doctrinal point whatsoever occurring in
either piece of divine teaching.

§ 34. As far as I can judge of the ways of men, it seems to
me that the simplest and most necessary truths are always the
last believed; and I suppose that well-meaning people in
general would rather regulate their conduct and creed by
almost any other portion of Scripture whatsoever, than by that
Sermon on the Mount which contains the things that Christ
thought it first necessary for all men to understand. Never-
theless, I believe the time will soon come for the full force of
these two passages of Scripture to be accepted. Instead of
supposing the love of nature necessarily connected with tha
faithlessness of the age, I believe it is connected properly with
the benevolence and liberty of the age ; that it is precisely the
most healthy element which distinctively belongs to us ; and
that out of it, cultivated no longer in levity or ignorance, but
in earnestness and as a duty, results will spring of an importance
at present inconceivable ; and lights arise, which, for the first
time in man's history, will reveal to him the true nature of his
life, the true field for his energies, and the true relations
between him and his Maker.

§ 35. I will not endeavor here to trace thd various modes
in which these results are likely to be effected, for this would
involve an essay on education, on the uses of natural history,
and the probable friture destiny of nations. Somewhat on these
subjects I have spoken in other places; and I hope to find
time, and proper place, to say more. But one or two observa-
tions may be made merely to suggest the directions in which
.the reader may follow out th^ subject for himself.

1)08 THB MORAL OF LAND8CAPK. [PART IV»

The great mechanical impulses of the age, of which most of
U8 are so proud, are a mere passing fever, half-speculative,
half-childish. People will discover at last that royal roads to
anything can no more be laid in iron than they can in dust ;
that there are, in fact, no royal roads to anywhere worth going
to ; that if there were, it would that instant cease to be worth
going to, — I mean so far as the things to be obtained are in
any way estimable in terms o£ price. For there are two classes
of precious things in the world : those that God gives us for
nothing — sun, air, and life (both mortal life and immortal) ;
and the secondarily precious things which he gives us for a
price : these secondarily precious things, worldly wine and
milk, can only be bought for definite money ; they never can
be cheapened. No cheating nor bargaining will ever get a
single thing out of nature's "establishment" at half-price.
Do we want to be strong ? — we must work. To be hungry ? —
we must starve. To be happy ? — we must be kind. To be
wise ? — we must look and think. No changing of place at a
hundred miles an hour, nor making of stuffs a thousand yards
a minute, will make us one whit stronger, happier, or wiser.
There was always more in the world than men could see,
^ walked they ever so slowly ; they will see it no better for
going fast. And they will at last, and soon too, find out that
their grand inventions for conquering (as they think) space and
time, do, in reality, conquer nothing ; for space and time are,
in their own essence, unconquerable, and besides did not want
any sort of conquering ; they wanted tmng, A fool always
wants to shorten space and time : a wise man wants to lengthen
both. A fool wants to kill space and kill time : a wise man^
first to gain them, then to animate them. Your railroad, when
you come to understand it, is only a device for making the
world smaller: and as for being able to talk from place to
place, that is, indeed, well and convenient ; but suppose
you have, originally, nothing to say.* We shall be obliged
at last to confess, what we should long ago have known, that
the really precious things are thought and sight, not pace.

* " The light-outspeeding telegraph

Bears nothing on its beam." Embbson.

See Appendix IIL, Plagiarism. ^

VOL. III.] THE MORAL OF LANDSCAPE. 809

It does a bullet no good to go fast ; and a man, if he be truly a
man, no harm to go slow ; for his glory is not at all in going,
but in being.

§ 36. " Well ; but railroads and telegraphs are so useful for
communicating knowledge to savage nations." Yes, if you
have any to give them. If you know nothing hut railroads,
and can communicate nothing but aqueous vapor and gun*
powder, — what then ? But if you have any other thing than
those to give, then the railroad is of use only because it com-
municates that other thing ; and the question is — what that
other thing may be. Is it religion % I believe if we had
really wanted to communicate that, we could have done it
in less than 1800 years, without steam. . Most of the good
religious communication that I remember has been done on foot ;
and it cannot be easily done faster than at foot pace. Is it
science ? But what science — of motion, meat, and medicine ?
Well ; when you have moved your savage, and dressed your
savage, fed him with white bread, and shown him how to set a
limb, — what nextl Foljow out that question. Suppose
every obstacle overcome ; give your savage every advantage
of cilization to the full : suppose that you have put the Red
Indian in tight shoes ; taught the Chinese how to make Wedg-
wood's ware, and to paint it with colors that will rub off ; and
persuaded all Hindoo women that it is more pious to torment
their husbands into graves than to burn themselves at the
burial, — what next ? Gradually, thinking on from point to
point, we shall come to perceive that all true happiness and
nobleness are near us, and yet neglected by us ; and that till
we have learned how to be happy and noble, we have not much
to tell, even to Eed Indians. The delights of horse-racing and
hunting, of assemblies in the night instead of the day, of costly
and wearisome music, of costly and burdensome dress, of cha-
grined contention for place or power, or wealth, or the eyes of
the multitude ; and all the endless occupation without purpose,
and idleness without rest, of our vulgar world, are not, it
seems to me, enjoyments we need be ambitious to communi-
cate. And all real and wholesome enjoyments possible to man
have been just as possible to him, since first he was made
of the earth, as they are now; and they are possible to him

310 THS MORAL OW LANDSCAPE. [pART IV.

cbieflj in peace. To wfttch the com grow, and the blossoms
set ; to draw hard breath -oyer ploughshare or spade ; to read,
to think, to love, to hope, to pray, — these are the things that
make men happy ; they have always had the power of doing
these, they never will have power to do more. The world's
prosperity or adversity depends npon our knowing and teach-
ing these few things : bat npon iron, or gUss, or electricity, or
steam, in no wise.

§ 37. And I am Utopian and enthufoastie enough to believe,
that the time will come when the world will discover this. It
has now made its experiments in every possible direction but
the right one ; and it seems that it must, at last, try the right
one, in a mathematical necessity. It has tried fighting, and
preaching, and fasting, buying and selling, pomp and parsi-
mony, pride and humiliation^— every possible manner of ex-
istence in which it could conjecture there was any happiness or
dignity ; and all the while, as it bought, sold, and fought, and
fasted, and wearied itself with policies, and ambitions, and'
self-denials, God had placed its real^ happiness in the keeping
of the little mosses of the wayside, and of the clouds of the
firmament. Now and then a weary king, or a tormented slave*
found out where the true kingdoms of the world were, and
possessed himself, in a furrow or two of garden ground, of a
truly infinite dominion. But the world would not believe their
report, and went on trampling down the mosses, and forgetting
the clouds, and seeking happiness in its own way, until, at last,
blundering and late, came natural science; and in natural
science not only the observation of things, but the finding out
of new uses for them. Of course the world, having a choice
left to it, went wrong as usual, and thought that these mere
material uses were to be the sources of its happiness. It got
the clouds packed into iron cylinders, and made it carry its wise
self at their own cloud pace. It got weavable fibres out of
the mosses, and made clothes for itself, cheap and fine, — here
was happiness at last. To go as fast as the clouds, and manu-
facture everything out of anything, — ^here was paradise,
indeed !

§ 38. And now, when, in a little while, it is unparadised
again, if there were any other mistake that the world could

VOL, UI.] THE MORAL OF LANDSCAFE. 311

make» it would of course make it. Bat I see not that tbere is
any other ; and, standing fairlj at its wits' end, having found
that going fast, when it is used to it, is no more paradisiacal than
going slow ; and that all the prints and cottons in Manchester
cannot make it comfortahle in its mind, I do verily believe it
will come, finally, to understand that God paints the clouds
and shapes the moss-fibres, that men may be happy in seeing
Him at His work» and that in resting quietly beside Him, and
watching His working, and — according to the power He has
communicated to ourselves, and the guidance He grants, — ^in
carrying out His purposes of peace and charity among all His
creatures* are the only real happinesses that ever were, or will
be, possible to mankind.

§ 39. How far art is capable ot helping us in such happi-
ness we hardly yet know ; but I hope to be able, in the
subsequent parts of this work, to give some data for arriving
at a conclusion in the matter. Enough has been advanced to
relieve the reader from any lurking suspicion of unworthiness
in our subject, and to induce him to take interest in the mind
and work of the great painter who has headed the landscape
school among us. What farther considerations may, within any
reasonable limits^ be put before him* respecting the effect of
natural scenery on the human heart, I will introduce in their
proper places either as we examine, under Turner's guidance,
the different classes of scenery, or at the close of the whole
work ; and therefore I have only one point more to notice
here, namely, the exact relation between landscape-painting
and natural science, properly so called.

§ 40. For it may be thought that I have rashly assumed that
the Scriptural authorities above quoted apply to that partly
superficial view of nature which is taken by the landscape-
painter, instead of to the accurate view taken by the man of
science. So far from there being rashness in such an assumption,
the whole language, both of the book of Job and the Sermon
on the Mount, gives precisely the view of nature which is taken
by the uninvestigating affection of a humble, but powerful
mind. There is no dissection of muscles or counting of ele-
ments, but the boldest and broadest glance at the apparent
facts, and the most magnificent metaphor in expressing them.

312 THE MORAL OF LANDSCAPE. [p ART IV.

** His eyes are like the eyelids of the morning. In his neck
remaineth strength, and sorrow is turned into joy before him."
And in the often repeated, never obeyed, command, " Consider
the lilies of the field," observe there is precisely the deli-
cate attribution of life which we have seen to be the cha-
racteristic of the modem view of landscape, — " They toil not."
There is no science, or hint of science ; no counting of petals,
nor display of provisions for sustenance : nothing but the
expression of sympathy, at once the most childish, and the
most profound, — " They toil not."

§ 41. And we see in this, therefore, that the instinct which
leads us thus to attribute life to the lowest forms of organic
nature, does not necessarily spring from faithlessness, nor the
deducing a moral out of them from an irregular and languid
conscientiousness. In this, as in almost all things connected
with moral discipline, the same results may follow from contrary
causes ; and as there are a good and evil contentment, a good
and evil discontent, a good and evil care, fear, ambition, and
so on, there are also good and evil forms of this sympathy with
nature, and disposition to moralize over it.* In general, active
men, of strong sense and stern principle, do not care to see
anything in a leaf, but vegetable tissue, and are so well con-
vinced of useful moral truth, that it does not strike them as a
new or notable thing when they find it in any way symbolized
by material nature ; hence there is a strong presumption, when
first we perceive a tendency in any one to regard trees as liv-
ing, and enunciate moral aphorisms over every pebble they
stumble against, that such tendency proceeds from a morbid
temperament, like Shelley's, or an inconsistent one, like Jaques's.
But when the active life is nobly fulfilled, and the mind is then
raised beyond it into clear and calm beholding of the world
around us, the same tendency again manifests itself in the
most sacred way : the simplest forms of nature are strangely

* Compare what is said before in varioos places of good and bad finish,
good and bad mystery, dec If a man were disposed to system-making, he
could easily throw together a counter-system to Aristotle's, showing that
in all things there were two extremes which exactly resembled each other,
but of which one was bad, the other good ; and a mean, resembling neither,
but better than the one, and worse than the other.

VOL. in.] THE IIOEAL OV LANDSCAPB. 813

animated by the sense of the Divine presence ; the trees and
flowers seem all, in a sort, children of God ; and we ourselves,
their fellows, made out of the same dust, and greater than
they only in having a greater portion of the Divine power
exerted on our frame, and all the common uses and palpably
visible forms of things, become subordinate in« our minds to
their inner glory, — to the mysterious voices in which they talk
to us about God, and the changeful and typical aspects by
which they witness to us of holy truth, and fill us with ol^edi-
ent, joyful, and thankful emotion.

§ 42. It is in raising us from the first state of inactive reverie
to the second of useful thought, that scientific pursuits are to
be chiefly praised. But in restraining us at this second stage,
and checking the impulses towards higher contemplation, they
are to be feared or blamed. They may in certain minds be
consistent with such contemplation ; but only by an effort : in
their nature they are always adverse to it, having a tendency
to chill and subdue the feelings, and to resolve all things into
atoms and numbers. For most men, an ignorant enjoyment is
better than an informed one ; it is better to conceive the sky
as a blue dome than a dark cavity, and the cloud as a golden
throne than a sleety mist. I much question whether any one
who knows optics, however reli^ous he may be, can feel in
equal degree the pleasure or reverence which an unlettered
peasant may feel at the sight of a rainbow. And it is merci-
fully thus ordained, since the law of life, for a finite being, with
respect to the works of an infinite one, must be always an
infinite ignorance. We cannot fathom the mystery of a single
flower, nor is it intended that we should; but that the pursuit
of science should constantly be stayed by the love of beauty,
and accuracy of knowledge by tenderness of emotion.

§ 43. Nor is it even just to speak of the love of beauty as in
all respects unscientific ; for there is a science of the aspects of
things as well as of their nature ; and it is as much a fact to be
noted in their constitution, that they produce such and such an
effect upon the eye or heart (as, for instance, that minor scales
of sound cause melancholy), as that they are made up of cer-
tain atoms or vibrations of matter.

It is as the master of this science of Aspects, that I .said, some

VOL. III. 14

S14 THS MOKAL 07 LA5D8CAPB. [pABT IT.

time ago, Turner nrngt eventually be named always with
Bacon, the master of the science of Essence. As the first poet
who has, in all their range, understood the grounds of noble
emotion which exist in Landscape, his future influence will be
of a still more subtle and important character. The rest of
this work will 'therefore be dedicated to the explanation of the
principles on which he composed, and of the aspects of nature
which he was the first to discern.

VOL. m.] . OW TffiB TBACHKBS OF TURNiau S15

CHAPTER XVIIL

or THE TSACBXBS OV TURNXB.

§ 1. Thb first step to the understanding either the mind or
position of a great man ought, I think, to be an inquiry into the
elements of his early instruction, and the mode in which he was
affected by the circumstances of surrounding life. In making
this inquiry, with respect to Turner, we shall be necessarily led
to take note of the causes which had brought landscape-paint-
ing into the state in which he found it ; and, therefore, of those
transitions of style which, it will be remembered, we overleaped
(hoping for a future opportunity of examining them) at the
close of the fifteenth chapter.

§ 2. And first, I said, it will be remembered, some way back,
that the relations between Scott and Turner would probably be
found to differ very curiously from those between Dante and
Giotto. They differ primarily in this, — that Dante and Giotto,
living in a consistent age, were subjected to one and the same
influence, and may be reasoned about almost in similar terms.
But Scott and Turner, living in an inconsistent age, became sub-
jected to inconsistent influences ; and are at once distinguished
by notable contrarieties, requiring separate examination in each.

§ 3. Of these, the chief was that Scott, having had the bless-
ing of a totally neglected education, was able early to follow
most of his noble instincts ; but Turner, having suffered under
the instruction of the Boyal Academy, had to pass nearly thir-
ty years of his life in recovering from its consequences* ; this
permanent result following for both, — that Scott never was led

* The education here spoken of is, of course, that bearing on the main
work of life. In other respects, Turner's education was more neglected
than Scott*8, and that not beneficently See the dose of the third of my
Edinburgh Leeturea.

310 09 THS TBACHXB9 OF TVB9SR. [PABT IT.

into any fiiult foreign to his nature, but spoke what was in him,
in rugged or idle simplicity ; erring only where it was natural
to err, and fuling only where it was impossible to succeed.
But Turner, from the beginning, was led into constrained and
unnatural error ; diligently debarred from every ordinary help
to success. The one thing which the Academy ought to have
taught him (namely, the simple and safe use of oil colour), it
never taught him ; but it carefully repressed his perceptions of
truth, his capacities of invention, and his tendencies of choice.
For him it was impossible to do right but in the spirit of defi-
ance ; and the first condition of his progress in learning, was the
power to forget

§ 4. One most important distinction in their feelings through-
out life was necessitated by this difference in early training.
Scott gathered what little knowledge of architecture he pos-
sessed, in wanderings among the rocky walls of Grichtoun,
Lochleven, and Linlithgow, and among the delicate pillars of
Holyrood, Boslin, and Melrose. Turner acquired his know-
ledge of architecture at the desk, from academical elevations of
the Parthenon and St. Paul's; and spent a large portion of his
early years in taking views of gentlemen's seats, temples of the
Muses, and other productions of modem taste and imagination ;
being at the same time directed exclusively to classical sources
for information as to the proper subjects of art. Hence, while
Scott was at once directed to the history of his native land, and
to the Gothic fields of imagination ; and his mind was fed in a
consistent, natural, and felicitous way from his youth up, poor
Turner for a long time knew no inspiration but that of Twick-
enham ; no sublimity but that of Virginia Water. All the his-
tory and poetry presented to him at the age when the mind re-
ceives its dearest associations, were those of the gods and nations
of long ago ; and his models of sentiment and style were the
worst and last wrecks of the Renaissance affectations.

§ 5. Therefore (though utterly free from affectation), his
early works are full of an enforced artificialness, and of things
ill-done and ill-conceived, because foreign to his own instincts ;
and, throughout life, whatever he did, because he thought he
ought to do it, was wrong; all that he planned on any principle,
or in supposed obedience to canons of taste, was false and abor-

YOU III.] OF THE TEACHERS OF TURNER. 3lY

tive : lie onlj did right when he ceased to reflect ; was power-
ful only when he made no effort, and successful only when he
had taken no aim.

§ 6. And it is one of the most interesting things connected
with the study of his art, to watch the way in which his own
strength of English instinct breaks gradually through fetter
and formalism ; how from Egerian wells he steals away to
Yorkshire streamlets ; how from Homeric rocks, with laurels at
the top and caves in the bottom, he climbs, at last, to Alpine
precipices fringed with pine, and fortified with the slopes
of their own ruins ; and how from Temples of Jupiter and
Gardens of the Hesperides, a spirit in his feet guides him,
at last, to the lonely arches of Whitby, and bleak sands of
Holy Isle.

§ 7. As, however, is the case with almost all inevitable evil,
in its effect on great minds, a certain good rose even out
of this warped education ; namely, his power of more com-
pletely expressing all the tendencies of his epoch, and sym-
pathizing with many feelings and many scenes which must
otherwise have been entirely profitless to him. Scott's mind
was just as large and full of sympathy as Turner's ; but
having been permitted always to 'take his own choice
among sources of enjoyment, Scott was entirely incapable of
entering into the spirit of any classical scene. He was strictly
a Goth and a Scot, and his sphere of sensation may be almost
exactly limited by the growth of heather. But Turner had
been forced to pay early attention to whatever of good and
right there was even in things naturally distasteful to him. The
charm of early association had been cast around much that to
other men would have been tame : while making drawings of
flower-gardens and Palladian mansions, he had been taught
sympathy with whatever grace or refinement the garden or
mansion could display, and to the closo^of life could enjoy the
delicacy of trellis and parterre, as well as the wildness of the
wood and the moorland; and watch the staying of the silver
fountain at its appointed height in the sky, with an interest as
earnest, if not as intense, as that with which he followed
the crash of the Alpine cataract into its clouds of wayward
rage. \

S18 OW THS TKACBSM OF TURITO. [PART IV,

§ 8« The distioct losses to be weigbed against tbis gain are,
fint, the waste of time during youth in painting subjects of no
interest whatsoever, — parks, villas, and ngly architecture in
general : secondly, the devotion of its utmost strength in later
years to meaningless classical oompoaitions» such as the Fall and
Bise of Carthage, Bay of Baiee, Daphne and Lencippus, and
such others, which, with infinite accumulation of material, are
yet utterly heartless and emotionless, dead to the very root of
thought, and incapable of producing wholesome or useful e£Feet
on any human mind, except only as exhibitions of technical
■kill and graceful arrangement : and, lastly, his incapacity, to
the close of life, of entering heartily into the spirit of any
elevated architecture ; for those Palladian and classical build-
ings which he had been taught that it was right to admire,
being wholly devoid of interest, and in their own formality and
barrenness quite unmanageable, he was obliged to make them
manageable in his pictures by disguising them, and to use
all kinds of playing shadows and glittering lights to obscure
their ugly details ; and as in their best state such buildings are
white and colorless, he associated the idea of whiteness with
perfect architecture generally, and was confused and puzzled
when he found it grey. Hence he never got thoroughly into
the feeling of Gothic ; its darkness and complexity embarrassed
him ; he was very apt to whiten by way of idealizing it, and to
cast aside its details in order to get breadth of delicate light.
In Venice, and the towns of Italy generally, he fastened on
the wrong buildings, and used those which he chose merely as
kind of white clouds, to set off his brilliant groups of boats, or
burning spaces of lagoon. In various other minor ways, which
we shall trace in their proper place, his classical education
hindered or hurt him ; but I feel it very difficult to say how
far the loss-was balancqd by the general grasp it gave his mind ;
nor am I able to conceljkc what would have been the result, if
his aims had been made at once narrower and more natural,
and he had been led in his youth to delight in Gothic legends
instead of clasidcal mythology ; and, instead of the porticos
of the Parthenon, had studied in the aisles of Notre
Dame.

§ 9. It is still^ inore difficult to conjecture whether the

VOL. m.] or TBS tbachkss of tdbhsb* dl9

gathered most good or evil from the pietorial art which sur-
rounded him in his ypirth. What that art was» and how the
European schools had arrived at it, it now heoomes necessary
brieflj to inqture.

It will be remembered that, in the 14th chapter, we left our
mediaeval landscape (§ 18.) in a state of severe formality, and
perfect subordination to the interest of figure subject. I will
now rapidly trUce the mode and progress of its emancipa«-
tioQ.

§ 10. The f<mnalized conception of scenery remained Kttle
altered until the time of Raphael, being only better executed
as the knowledge of art advanced ; that is to say, though the
trees were still stiff, and often set one on each side of the prin-
cipal figures, their color and relief on the sky were exquisite-
ly imitated,. and all groups of near leaves and flowers drawn
with the most tender care, and studious botanical accuracy.
The better the subjects were painted, however, the more logi-
cally absurd they became : a background wrought in Chinese
confusion of towers and rivers, was in early times passed over
carelessly, and forgiven for the jsake of its pleasant color ; but
it appealed somewhat too far to imaginative indulgence when
Ghirlandajo drew an exquisite perspective view of Venice and
her lagoons behind an Adoration of the Magi* ; and the impos-
sibly small boats Wl^ch might be pardoned in a mere illumina-
tion, representing the miraculous draught of fishes, became,
whatever may be. said to the contrary, inexcusably absurd in
Baphael's fully realized landscape ; so as at once to destroy
the credibility of every circumstance of the event.

§ 11. A certain charm, however, attached itself to many
forms of this landscape, owing to their very unnaturalness, as I
have endeavored to explain already in the last chapter of the
second volume, §§ 9. to 12.; noting, however, there, that it was
in no wise to be made a subject of- imitation ; a conclusion
which I have since seen more and more ground for holding
finally. The longer I think over the subject, the more I per-
ceive that the pleasure we take in such unnatural landscapes
is intimately connected with our habit of regarding the New

* The picture is in the Uffiadi of Florence.

S20 J09 THX TSACHSR8 OV TURRIBtt. ' [PART IT.

Testament as a beaotifiil poeHH instead of a statement of plain
fSsicts. He who believes thoronghlj that the events are true
will expect, and ought to expect, real olive copse behind real
Madonna, and no sentimental absurdities in either.

§ 12. Nor am I at all snre how far the delight which we
take (when I say we, I mean, in general, lovers of old sacred
art) in such quaint landscape, arises from its peculiar Jbl^-
hood, and how far from its peculiar truth. For as it falls into
certain errors more boldly, so, also, what truth it states, it
states more firmly than subsequent work. No engravings,
that I know, render the backgrounds of sacred pictures with
sufficient care to enable the reader to judge of this matter
unless before the works themselves. I have, therefore, en-
graved, on the opposite page, a bit of the background of Rapha-
el's Holy Family, in the Tribune of the Uffizii, at Florence.
I copied the trees leaf for leaf, and the rest of the work with'
the best care I could ; the engraver, Mr. Armytage, has admi-
rably rendered the delicate atmosphere which partly veils the
distance. Now I do not know how far it is necessary to such
pleasure as we receive from this landscape, that the trees
should be both so straight and formal in stem, and should
have branches no thicker than threads ; or that the outlines of
the distant hills should approximate so closely to those on any
ordinary Wedgewood's china pattern.^ I know that, on the
contrary, a great part of the pleasure arises from the sweet
expression of air and sunshine ; from the traceable resemblance
of the city and tower to Florence and Fesole ; from the fact
that, though the boughs are too thin, the lines, of ramification
are true and beautiful ; and from the expression of continually
varied form in the clusters of leafage.- And although all lovers
of sacred art would shrink in horror from the idea of substitut-
ing for such a landscape a bit of Cuyp or Bubens, I do not
think that the horror they feel is because Cuyp and Rnbens's
landscape is truer ^ but' because it is coarser and more vulgar in
associated idea than Raphael's ; and I think it possible that
the true forms of hills, and true thicknesses of boughs, might
be tenderly stolen into this background of Raphael's without
giving offence to any one.

§ 13. Take a somewhat more definite instance. The rock in

J ?diktn nfter I\*LTilifltl

n. Latest Fiirigra.

Lith dF Sirrjiiy ^ {?«■

-TT

:/4j^

,• .'..,.-.._. ^/''.^|^T '*. A

Tlic Slioics (.r Wli.ufc

VOL. m.]

or ths'tbachxbs or Tuiunau

S21

Fig. 5., at the side, is one
put bj Ghirlandajo into
the background of his Bap-
tism of Christ. I have no
doubt Ghirlandajo's own
rocks and trees are better,
in several respects, than
those here represented,
since I havei copied them
from one of Lasinio's exe-
crable engravings ; still,
the harsh outline, and gen<r
erally stiff and uninventfnl
blackness of the design
are true enough, and cha-
racteristic of all rock-paint-
ing of the period. In the
plate opposite I have etch-
ed* the oulline of a frag-
ment of one of Turner's
clifis, out of his drawing
of Bolton Abbey; and it
does not seem to me that*
supposing them properly
introduced in the compo-
sition, the substitution of
the soft natural lines for
the hard unnatural ones
would make Ohirlandajo's
background one whit less
sacred.

§ 14. But be this as it may, the fa<
have it, that profanity of feeling, and si

is* as ill luck wotdd
art, increased to-
gether ; so that we do not find the backgrounds rightly painted
till the figures become irreligious and feelingless ; and hence
we associate necessarily the perfect landscape with want of

* Hiis etching is prepared for receiying mezzotint in the next yoltime ;
it is therefore much heavier in line, especially in the water, than I should
have made it^ if intended to be complete as it is.

828 OF THS TSAOfiKlUB OF TOBKEB. [pAST XT.

feeUng. The fint great innorator was either Masaccio or
Filippino Lippi : their works are bo eonfased together in the
Chapel of the Carmine, that I know not to whom I may attri-
hnter— or whether, without being immediate^ quarrelled with,
and cpntradicted, I maj attribute to anybody, — ^the landscape
background of the fresco of the Tribute Money. But that
background, with one or two other fragments in the same
chapel, is far in advance of all other work I have seen of the
period, in expression of the rounded contours and large slopes
of hills, and the association of their summits with the clouds.
The opposite engraving will give some better idea of its cha-
racter than can be gained from the outlines commonly publish-
ed; though the dark spaces, which in the original are deep
blue, come necessarily somewhat too harshly on the eye when
translated into light and shade. I shall have occasion to speak
with greater speciality of this background in examining the
forms of hills'; meantime, it is only as an isolated work that it
can be named in the history of pictorial progress, for Masaccio
died too young to carry out his purposes ; and the men around
him were too ignorant of landscape to understand or take ad-
vantage of the little he had done. Raphael, though he borrow-
ed from him in the human figure, never seems to have been
influenced by his landscape, and retains mther, as in Plate
11., the upright formalities of Pemgmoi or, by way of
being natural, expands his distances into flattish flakes of hill,
nearly formless, as in the backgrounds of the Charge to Peter
and Draught of Fishes; and thenceforward the Tuscan and
Boman schools grew more and more artificial, and lost them-
selves finally under round>headed niches and Corinthian porticos.
§ 15. It needed, therefore, the air of the northern mountains
and of the sea to bra^e the hearts of men to the development
of the true landscape ifebools. I sketched by chance one even-
ing the line of the Apennines from the ramparts of Parma, and
I have put the rough note of it, and the sky that was over it,
in Plate 14., and next to this (Plate 15.) a moment of sunset,
behind the Eaganean hills at Venice. I shall have occasion
to refer to both hereafter ; but they have some interest here as
types of the kind of scenes which were daily set before the
eyes of Correggio and Titian, and of the sweet free spaces of

o

<

J.rii^-.kuL, a.t'£^ji- Ivii-i-

16. ii: arlj ]SFaturali s m

Lilh oF Sftfonvi

VQL.XII.] or THS TSA0BXB8 OV TUBKXIU 828

sky tbroogh which rose and fell, to them, the colored rajs of
the morning and evening.

§ 16. And thej are eonnected, also, with the forms of land-
scape adopted hy the Lombardic masters, in a very cnrious
way. We noticed that the Flemings, educated entirely in flat
land, seemed to be always contented with the scenery it sup*
plied ; and we should naturally have expected that Titian and
Oorreggio, living in the midst of the levels of the lagoons, and
of the plain ot Lombardy, would also have expressed, in their
backgrounds, some pleasure in such level scenery, associated,
of coaxBC, with the sublimity of the far-away Apennine, £u-
ganean, or Alp. But not a whit. The plains of mulberry and
maize, of sea and shoal, by which they were surrounded, never
occur in thehr backgrounds but in cases of necessity ; and both
of them, in all their important landscapes, bury themselves in
wild wood ; Gorreggio delighting to relieve with green darkness
of oak and ivy the golden hair and snowy flesh of his figures ;
and Titiui, whenever the choice of a scene was in his power,
retiring to the narrow glens and forests of Gadore.

§ 17. Of the vegetation introduced by both, I shall have to
speak at length in the course of the chapters on Foliage;
meantime, I give in Plate 16. one of Titian's slightest bits of
background, from one of the frescoes in the little chapel behind
St. Antonio, at Fadua, which may be compared more conveni*
ently than any of his more elaborate landscapes with the purist
work from Baphael. For in both these examples the trees are
equally slender and delicate, only the formaJity of mediaeval
art is, by Titian, entirely abandoned, and the old conception
of the aspen grove and meadow done away with for ever. We
are now far from cities : the painter takes true delight in the
desert ; the trees grow wild and free ; the sky also has lost its
peace, and is writhed into folds of motion, closely impendent
upon earth, and somewhat threatening, through its solemn light.

§ 18. Although, however, this example is characteristic of
Titian in its wildness, it is not so in its looseness. It is only in
the distant backgrounds of the slightest work, or when he is
in a hurry, that Titian is vague : in all his near and studied
work he completes every detail with scrupulous care. The
next Plate, 17., a background of Tintoret's, from hig picture

824 OF TBB TBACHBHS OV TURKSB* [PAKT !▼.

of the Entombment at Parma, is more entirely charaeten^tie
of the Venetians. Some mistakes made in the redoction of
my drawing during the course of engraving have eramped the
carves of the boughs and leaves, of which I will give the true
outline farther on; meantime the subject, which is that de-
scribed in § 16. of the chapter on Penetrative Imagination,
Vol. II., will just as well answer the purpose of ezempHfying
the Venetian love of gloom and wildness, united with perfect
definition of detail* Every leaf and separate blade of grass is
drawn ; but observe how the blades of grass are broken, how
completely the aim at expression of faultlessness and felicity has
been withdrawn, as contrary to the laws of the existent
world.

§ 19. From this great Venetian school of landscape Turner
received much important teachingr^almost the only heathy
teaching which he owed to preceding art. The designs of the
Liber Studiorum are founded first on nature, but in many cases
modified hjjbrced imitation of Olaude, and Jhnd imitation of
Titian. All the worst and feeblest studies in the book--»as the
pastoral with the nymph playing the tai^bourine, that with the
long bridge seen through trees, and with the fiock of goats oa
the walled road— -owe the principal part of their imbedlides to
Olaude ; another group (Solway Moss, Peat Bog, Laufifenbourg,
tec.) is taken with hardly any modification by pictorial influ-
ence, straight from nature ; and the finest works in the book*-^
the Grande Chartreuse, Bizpah, Jason, Gephalua, and one or
two more — are strongly under the influence of Titian.

§ 20. The Venetian school of landscape expired with Tinto-
ret, in the year 1594 ; and the sixteenth century closed, lake a
grave, over the great art of the world. There is no entirely
sincere or great art in the seventeenth century. Bubens and
Bembrandt are its two greatest men, both deeply stained by
the errors and aflectations of their age. The influence of the
Venetians hardly extended to them ; the tower of the Titian-
esqne art fell southwards; and on the dust of its ruins grew
various art-weeds, such as Domenichino and the Garraccis.
Their landscape, which may in few words be accurately defined
as '' Scum of Titian,*' possesses no single merit, nor any ground
for the forgiveness of demerit ; they are to be named only as

▼OL. m.] OV TBS TSACHKB8 OF TUBHSB. 925

a link tbrongli which the Yenetian inflaence came dimly down
to Glaade and Salvator.

§ 21. Salvator poaaessed real gcnins. hat was crushed hj
misery in his jonth, and hj £uhionahle society in his age.
He had vigorous animal life, and considerable invention, bnt
no depth either of thought or perception. He took some hints
directly from nature, and expressed some conditions of the
grotesque of terror with original power ; but his baseness of
thought, and bluntness of sight, were unconquerable; and his
works possess no value whatsoever for any person versed in
the wa&s of noble art. They had litde, if any, influence on
Turner ; if any, it was in blinding him for some time to the
grace of tree trunks, and making him tear them too much into
splinters.

§ 22. Not so Claude, who may be considered as Turner's
principal master. Claude's capacities were of the most limited
kind ; but he had tenderness of perception, and sincerity of
purpose, and he effected a revolution in art. This revolution
consisted munly in setdog the sun in heaven.* Till Claude's
time no one had seriously thought of painting the sun but con-
ventionally ; that is to say, as a red or yellow star, (oflen)
with a face in it, under which type it was constantly repre-
sented in illumination ; else it was kept out of the picture, or
introduced in fragmentary distances, breaking through clouds
with almost definite rays. Perhaps the honor of having first
tiled to represent the real effect of the sun in landscape belongs
to Bonifazio, in his pictures of the camps of Israel.t Kubens
followed in a kind of bravado, sometimes making the rays issue
from anything but the orb of the sun ; — ^here, for instance, Fig.
6., is an outline of the position of the sun (at 9) with respect to
his own rays, in a sunset behind a tournament in the Louvre :
and various interesting effects of sunlight issuing from the con-
ventional face-filled orb occur in contemporary missal-painting;
for instance, very richly in the Harleian MS. Brit. Mus. 3469.

» Compare VoL L Part IL Sec. L Chap. VIL I repeat here some things
that were thea said ; but it is necessary now to review them in connection
with Tamer's education, as well as for the sake of enforcing them by
illustration.

f Now in the old library of Yeaiee.

826 OF THB TBA0HKR8 OP TVKKXB. [pAST IV.

But all this was merely indicative of the tendeaey to transition

which may always be traced in any^age before the man comes
who is to accomplish the transition. Claude took up the new
idea seriously, made the sun his subject, and painted the
effects of misty shadows cast by his rays over tho landscape,
and other delicate aerial transitions, as no one had ever done
before, and, in some respects, as no one has done in oil color
since.

§ 23. '' But, how, if this were so, could his capacities be of
the meanest order T' Because doing (me thing well, or better
than others have done it, does not necessarily imply large
capacity. Capacity means breadth of glance, understanding of
the relations of things, and invention, and these are rare and
precious ; but there are very few men who have not done
somethings in the course of their lives, better than other people.
I could point out many engravers, draughtsmen, and artists,
who have each a particular merit in their manner, or particular
field of perception, that nobody else has, or ever had. Bat
this does not make them great men, it only indicates a small
special capacity of some kind : and all the smaller if the gift be
very peculiar and single ; for a great man never so limits him-
self to one thing, as that we shall be able to say, " That's all
he can do.*' If Claude had been a great man he would not
have been so steadfastly set on painting effects of sun ; he

VOL. XII»] OV TBB TKACHXB8 OF TUBjOBB. 327

voald hay« looked at all natiiro» and at all art> and would have
painted sun effects somewhat worse, and nature universally
much better.

§ 24. Such as he was, however, his discoTcry of the way to
mako pictures look warm was rery delightful to the shallow
connoisseurs of the age. Not that they cared for sunshine ;
but they liked seeing ju^lery. They could not feel Titian's
noble color, nor Veronese's noble composition ; but they thought
it highly amusing to see the sun brought into a picture : and
Claude's works were bought and delighted in by vulgar people
then, for their reid-looking suns, as pictures are now by vulgar
people f^r having real timepieces in their church towers.

§ 25, But when Turner 'arose, with an earnest de9ire to paint
the whole of nature, he found that the existence of the sun
was an important fact, and by no means an easily manageable
one. He loved sunshine for its own sake ; but he could not
at first paint it Most things else, he would more or less manage
without mueh technical difficulty ; but the burning orb and the
golden haze could not, somehow, be got out of the oil paint.
Naturally he went to Gkude, who really had got them out of
oil paint ; approached him with great reverence, as having done
that which seemed to Turner most difficult of all technical
matters, and he became his faithful liisciple. How much ho
learned from him of manipulation, I cannot tell ; but one thing
is certain, that he never quite equalled him in that particular
forte of his. I imagine that Glaude's way of laying on oil
color was so methodical that it could not possibly be imitated
by a man whose mechanism was interfered with by hundreds of
thoughts and aims totally different from Glaude's ; and, besides,
I suppose that certain useful principles in the management of
paint, of which our schools are now wholly ignorant, had come
down as far as Claude, from the Venetians. Turner at last
gave up the attempt, and adopted a manipulation of his own,
which indeed effected certain objects attainable in no other way,
but which still was in many respects unsatisfactory, dangerous,
and deeply to be regretted.

§ 26. But meantime his mind had been strongly warped by
Glaude's futilities of conception. It was impossible to dwell
on such works for any length of time without being grievously

328 or TM TmAoasBS of tcrkbr. [pakt nr.

harmed bj tlieiii ; and the st jle of Turner's compositions was
for erer afterwards weakened or cormpted. For, truly, it is
almost beyond belief into what depth of absurdity Claude
plunges continually in his most admired designs. For in-
stance; undertaking to paint Moses at the Burning Bush, he
rejpreseats a graceful landscape with a city, a river, and a bridge,
and plenty of tall trees, and the sea, and nnmbexs of people
going about their business and pleasure in eveiy direction ;
and the bush burning quietly upon a bank in die comer ;
rather in the dark, and not to be seen without dose inspectioii.
It would take some pages of close writing to point out, one by
one, the inanities of heart, soul, and brain which such a con-
ception involves ; the ineffable ign6rance of the nature of the
event, and of the scene of it ; the incapacity of conceiving
an3rthing even in ignorance, which should be impressive ; the
dim, stupid, serene, leguminous enjoyment of his sunny after-
noon — ^bum the bushes as much aa they liked*— -these I leave
the reader to think over at his leisure, either before the picture
in Lord Ellesmere's gallery, or the sketch of it in the Liber
Veritatis. But all these kinds of fallacy sprung more or less
out of the vices of the time in which Claude lived ; his own
peculiar character reaches beyond these, to an incapadty of
understanding the mam point in anything he had to represent,
down to the minutest detail, which is quite unequalled, as fiir as
I know, in human nugatoriness. For instance ; here, in Fig. 7.,
is the head, with half the body, of
Eneas drawing his Bow, from No. *'*6' "^^
ISO. of the Liber Veritatis. Ob-
serve, the string is too long by half;
for if the bow were unbent, it would
be two feet longer than the whole bow.
Then the arrow is too long by half,
has too heavy a head by half ; and finally, it actually is under
the bow-hand, instead of above it Of the ideal and heroic
refinement of the head and drapery I will say nothing ; but
look only at the wretched archery, and consider if it would
be possible for any child to draw the thing with less under-
standing, or to make more mistakes in the given compass.*
* My old firiend l^ackwood complatiis bitterly, ia his last number, ni my

Toi.. nuj ow THS nAOHsss or rxramtu 920

- § 27. And yet) exquisite as is Glaude's instinct foiv blunder,
be has not strength of mind enough to blunder in a wholly
originiEil manner, but he must needs falter out of his way to
pick up other people's puerilities, and be absurd at second-
hand. I have been obliged to laugh a little— though I hope
reverently— pAt Ghirlandajo*s landscapes, which yet we saw
had a certain charm of quaintuess in them when contrasted
with hia grand figures ; but could any one have believed that
Claude, wiUi all the noble landscapes of Titian set before
him, and all nature round about him, should yet go back to
Ghirlandajo for types of form. Yet such is the case. I said
that the Venetian influence came dimly down to Claude ; but
the old Florentine influence came clearly. The Claudesque
landscape is not, as so commonly supposed, an idealized
abstract of the nature about Rome. It is an ultimate condition
of the Florentine conventional landscape, more or less softened
by reference to nature. Fig 8. (on next page), from No. 145.
of the liber Veritatis, is sufficiently characteristic of Claude's
rock-drawing; and compared with Fig. 5. (p 321} above, will
show exactly the kind of modification he made on old and re-
ceived types. We shall see other instances of it hereafter.

Imagine this kind of reproduction of whatever other people
had done worst, and this kind of misunderstanding of all that
he saw himself in nature, carried out in Claude's trees, rocks,
ships — ^in everything that he touched* — and then consider what
kind of school this work was for a young and reverent dis-
ciple. As I said. Turner never recovered the effects of it ; hia
compositions were always mannered, lifeless, and even foolish ;
and he only did noble things when the immediate presence

having given thiBillnstratien at one of my late lectures, saying, that I "have
a disagreeable knack of finding out the joints in my opponent's armor,^ and
that •* I never fight for love." I never do I fight for truth, earnestly,
and in no wise for jest ; and against aU lies, earnestly, and in no wise for
kve. They complain that '' a noble adversary is not in Mr. Baddn's way."
"No ; a noble adversary never waa^ never will be With all that is noble I
have been, and shall be, in perpetual peace , with all that is ignoble and
false everlastingly at war. And as for these Scotch hourgeoit gentiUhammei
with their " Tu n'ns pas la patience que Je pare," let them look to their
fence. Bnt truly, if they will tell me where Clande's strong points are, I
will strike there^ aad be thankfiiL

MO

o9 ram tiaoj

or Tujuiuu

[pjusvrr.

of naliire had overpower-
ed tlie reminbeenees of
his master.

§ 28. Of the influence
of Oaspar and Nieolo
Ponssin on Turner, there
is hardly anything to be
said, nor mnch respect-
ing that which they had
on landscape generally.
Nieolo Ponssin had noble
powers of design, and
might have been a
thoroughly great painter
had he been trained in
Venice; but his Roman
education kept him tame ;
his trenchant severity
was contrary to the ten-
dencies of the age, and
had few imitators com*
pared to the dashing of
Salvator, and the mist of
Claude. Those few imi-
tators adopted his man-
possessing
science or in-
the Italian
landscape soon
expired. Reminiscences
of him occur sometimes
in Turner's compositions of sculptured stones for fore-ground ;
and the beautiful Triumph of Flora, in the Louvre^ pro-
bably first showed Turner the use of definite flower, or
blossom-painting, in landscape. I doubt if he took anything
from Gaspar; whatever he might have learned from him
respecting masses of foliage and golden distances, could have
been learned better, and, I believe, tffcu learned, from Titian.
§ 29. Meantime, a lower, but more living school had devo-

TOL. in.] OV TBB TEACHERS OF TURNER. ^91

loped itself in the nortli ; Cayp had painted sunshine as truly
as Claude, gilding with it a more homely, but far more honestly
conceived landscape ; and the effects of light of De Hooghe
and Rembrandt presented examples of treatment to which
southern art could show no parallel. Turner evidently studied
these with the greatest care, and with great benefit in every
way; especially this, that they neutraliased the idealisms of
Claude, and showed the young painter what power might be in
plain truth, even of the most familiar kind. He painted several
pictures in imitation of these masters; and those in which he
tried to rival Cuyp are healthy and noble works, being, in fact,
just what most of Cuyp's own pictures are — faithful studies of
Dutch boats in calm weather, on smooth water. De Hooghe
was too precise, and Rembrandt too dark, to be successfully or
affectionately followed by him ; but he evidently learned much
from both.

§ 30. Finally, he painted many pictures in the manner of
Yandevelde (who was the accepted authority of his time in sea
pmnting), and received much injury from him. To the close of
his life. Turner always painted the sea too grey, and too
opaque, in consequence of his early study of Vandevelde. He
never seined to perceive color so truly in the sea as he saw it
elsewhere. But he soon discovered the poorness of Vande-
velde's forms of waves, and raised their meanly divided sur-
fkces into massive surge, effecting rapidly other changes, of
which more in another place.

Such was the art to which Turner, in early years, devoted
his most earnest thoughts. More or less respectful contem-
plation of Reynolds, Loutherbourg, Wilson, Gainsborough,
Morland, and Wilkie, was incidentally mingled with his graver
study ; and he maintained a questioning watchfulness of even
the smallest successes of his brother artists of the modem land-
scape school. It remans for us only to note the position of
that living school when Turner, helped or misled, as the case
may be, by the study of the older artists, began to consider
what remained for him to do, or design.

§ 31. The dead schools of landscape, composed of the works
we have just been examining, were broadly divisible into
northern and southern : the Dutch schools, more or less natural.

892 OV TRB TKACBKR8 OF TUKHXB, [PABT IV«

but vulgar ; the Italian, more or less elevated, but absurd.
There was a certiun foolish elegance in Glaade, and a dull
dignity in Caspar ; but then their work resembled nothing that
ever existed in the world. On the contrary, a canal or cattle
piece of Gujp's had many veracities about it ; but they were,
at best, truths of the ditch and dairy. The grace of nature, or
her gloom, her tender and sacred seclusions, or her reach of
power and wrath, had never been painted ; nor had anything
been painted yet in true love of it ; for both Dutch and Italians
agreed in this, that they always painted for the picture* 8 sake,
to show how well they eould imitate sunshine, arrange masses,
or articulate straws, — ^never because they loved the scene, or
wanted to carry away some memory of it.

And thus, all that landscape of the old masters is to be con-
sidered merely as a struggle of expiring skill to discover some
new direction in which to display itself. There was no love
of nature in the B^e ; only a desire for something new. There-
fore those schools expired at last, leaving the chasm of nearly
utter emptiness between them and the true modems, out of
which chasm the new school rises, not engrafted on that old
one, but, from the very base of all things, beginning with mere
washes of Indian ink, touched upon with yellow and brown ;
and gradually feeling its way to color.

But this infant school differed inherently from that ancienter
one, in that its motive was love. However feeble its efforts
might be, they vreiejor tlie sake of the naturey not of the pic-
ture, and therefore, having this germ of true life, it grew and
throve. Robson did not paint purple hills because he wanted
to show how he could lay on purple; but because he truly
loved their dark peaks. Fielding did not paint downs to show
how dextei'ously he could sponge out mists ; but because he
loved downs.

This modem school, therefore, became the only true school
of landscape which had yet existed ; the artificial Claiide and
Gaspar work may be cast aside out of our way, — as I have said
in my Edinburgh lectures, under the general title of *' pastoral-
ism," — and from the last landscape of Tintoret, if we look for
life, we must pass at once to the first of Turner.

§ 32. What help Turner received from this or that com-

TOL. ni.] OF TBB TBACHKIU OW TITRVKB. S33

paoioQ of his jonth is of no importance to mij one now Of
course every great man is always being helped by everybody,*
for his gift is to get good out of all things and all persons ; and
also there were two men associated with him in early study,
who showed high promise in the same £eld, Cousen and Gurtin
(especially the former), and there is no saying what these men
might have done had they lived; there might, perhaps, have
been a struggle between one or other of them and Turner, as
between Giorgione and Titian. But they lived not ; and Turner
is the only great man whom the school has yet produced, —
quite great enough, as we shall see, for all that needed to be
done. To him, therefore, we now finally turn, as the sole
object of our inquiry. I shall first reinforce, with such
additions as they need, those statements of his general principles
which I made in the first volume, but could not then demon-
strate fully, for want of time to prepare pictorial illustration ; and
then proceed to examine, piece by piece, his representations of
the facts of nature, comparing them, as it may seem expedient,
with what had been accomplished by others.

I cannot close this volume without alluding briefly to a sub-
ject of different interest from any that have occupied us in its
pages. For it may, perhaps, seem to a general reader heartless
and vain to enter zealously into questions about our arts and
pleasures in a time of so great public anxiety as this.

But he will find» if he looks back to the sixth paragraph of
the opening chapter of the last volume, some statement of feel-
ings, which, as they made me despondent in a time of apparent
national prosperity, now cheer me in one which, though of
stem trial, I will not be so much a coward as to call one of
adversity. And I derive this encouragement first from the
belief that the War itself, with all its bitterness, is, in the
present state of the European nations, productive of more good
than evil ; and, secondly, because I have more confidence than
others generally entertain, in the justice of its cause.

♦ His first drawing-master was, I believe, that Mr. Lowe, whose dangh-
ters, now aged and poor, have, it seems to me, some claim on public regard,
being connected distantly with the memory of Johnson, and dosely with
that of Tomer.

834 or THS TSACHBRS OF TimKER. [PilBT IT.

I naj, first, because I believe the war is at present productive
of good more thaa of evil. I will not a^^e this hardly and
eoldlj, as I might, by tracing in past history some of the
abundant evidence that nations have always reached their
highest virtue, and wrought their most accomplished works, in
times of straitening and battle ; as, on the other hand, no nation
ever yet enjoyed a protracted and triumphant peace without
receiving in its own bosom ineradicable seeds of future decline.
I will not so argue this matter ; but I will appeal at once to
the testimony of those whom the war has cost the dearest. I
know what would be told me, by those who have suffered
nothing ; whose domestic happiness has been unbroken ; whose
daily comfort undisturbed ; whose experience of calamity con-
sists, at its utmost, in the incertitude of a speculation, the dear-
BOSS of a luxury, or the increase of demands upon their fortune
which they eould meet fourfold without inconvenience. From
these, I can well believe, be they prudent economists, or care-
less pleasure-seekers, the cry for peace will rise alike voci-
ferously, whether in street or senate. But I asktkeir witness,
to whom the war has changed the aspect of the earth, and
imagery of heaven, whose hopes it has cut off like a spider's
web, whose treasure it has placed, in a moment, under the
seals of clay. Those who can never more see sunrise, nor
watch the climbing light gild the Eastern clouds, without
thinking what graves it has gilded, first, far down behind the
dark earth-line, — who never more shall see the crocus bloom in
spring, without thinking what dust it is that feeds the wild
flowers of Balaclava. Ask their witness, and see if they will
not reply that it is well with them, and with theirs ; that they
would have it no otherwise ; would not, if they might, receive
back their gifts of love and life, nor take again the purple of
their blood out of the cross on the breastplate of England.
Ask them : and though they should answer only with a sob,
listen if it does not gather upon their lips into the sound of the
old Seyton war-cry — " Set on,"

And this not for pride — not because the names of their lost
ones will be recorded to all time, as of those who held the
breach and kept the gate of Europe against the North, as the
Spartans did against the East ; and lay down in the place they

VOL. HI.] OF TSK TKACBBB8 OF TUBKSR* 335

had to giiafd» -vrkh the like home message, ** Oh, stranger, go
and tell the English that wq are lying here, having obeyed
their words;*' — not for this, but because, also, they have felt
that the spirit which has discerned them for eminenee in sorrow
— ^the helmed and sworded skeleton that rakes with its wliite
fingers the sands of the Black Sea beach into grave-hei^ after
grave^eap, washed by everlasting surf of tears — ^has been to
them an angel of other things than agony; that they have
learned, with those hoUow, undeceivable eyes of his, to see all
the earth by the sunlight of deathbeds ;— no ineh-high stage
for foolish griefs and feigned pleasures ; no dream, neither,
as its dull iiM>ralists told them ;— ^^i»^thing but that : a place
of true, marvellous, inextricable sorrow and power ; a question-
chamber of trial by rack and fire, irrevocable decision rec<»rding
continually ; and qo sleep, nor folding of hands, among the
demon-questioners; none among the angel*watchers, none
among the men who stand or fall beside those hosts of God.
They know now the strength of sacrifice, and that its flames
can illumine as well as consume f they are bound by new fideli-
ties to all that they have saved,-^by new love to all for whom
th^ have suffered ; every affection which seemed to sink with
those dim life-stains into the dust, has been delegated, by those
who need it no more, to the cause for which they have expired ;
and every mouldering arm, which will never more embrace
the beloved ones, has bequeathed to them its strength and its
faithfulness.

For the cause of this quarrel is no dim, half-avoidable invo-
lution of mean interests and (Mrrors, as some would have ns
believe. There never was a great war caused by such things.
There never can be. The historian may truce it, with ingenious
trifling, to a courtier*s jest or a woman's glance ; but he does
not ask — (and it is the sum of question8)-<^how the warring
nations had come to found their destinies on the course of the
sneer, or the smile. If they have so based them, it is time for
them to learn, through suffering, how to build on other founda-
tions ; — ^for great, accumulated, and most righteous cause, their
foot slides in due time ; and against the torpor, or the turpitude,
of their myriads, there is loosed the haste of the devouring
sword and the thirsty arrow. But if they have set their

BS6 OF TBB TBAOHBM OF TUBKXB. [PART IV.

fortunes on other than such ground, then the war nrast be
owing to eome deep convietion or passion in their own hearts,
<—« eonrietion which, in resistless flow, or reckless ebb, or
consistent stay, is the ultimate arbiter of battle, dii^i^xaee, or
conquest.

Whererer there b war, there mmit be injustice on one side or
the other, or on both. There have been wars which were little
more than trials of strength between friendly nations, aud in
which the injustice was not to each other, but to the God who
gave them life. But in a malignant war of these present ages
there is injustice of ignobler kind, at once to God and man,
which mmst be stemmed for both theur sakes. It may, indeed, be
so involved with national prejudices, or. ignorances, that neither
of the contendii^ nations can conceive it as attaching to their
cause; nay, the constitution of their governments, and the
clumsy crookedness of their political dealings with each other,
may be such as to prevent either of them £rom knowing the
actual cause for which they have gone to war. Assuredly this
is, in a great degree, the state of things with us; for I noUced
that there i^ver came news by telegraph of the ex{dosion of a
powder-barrel, or of the loss of thirty men by a sortie, but the
Parliament lost confidence immediately in the justice of the war ;
reopM:ied the qnestion whether we ever should have engaged in
it, and remained in a doubtful and repentant state of mind until
one of the enemy's powder-barrels blew up also ; upon which
they were immediately satisfied again that the war was a wise
and necessary one. How far, therefore, the calamity may have
been brought npon us by men whose political principles shoot
annuaUy like the leaves, and change color at every antnmn
frost : — how loudly the blood that has been poured out round
the walls of that city, up to the horse-bridles, may now be
crying from the ground against men who did not know, when
they first bade shed it, exactly what war was, or what blood
was, or what life was, or truth, or what anything else was upon
the earth; and whose tone of opinions touching the destinies
of mankind depended entirely upon whether they were sitting
on the right or left side of the House of Commons ;~- this,
I repeat, I know not, nor (in all solemnity I say it) do I care
to know. For if it be so> and the Bnglisfa natkn could at the

VOL. in.] OF THE TEA0HSB8 OV TUBNBB. 337

present period of its history be betrayed into « war snch as
this by the slipping of a wrong word into a protocol, or be-
witched into onexpeeted battle under the bndding hallucina-
tions of its sapling senators, truly it is time for us to bear the
penalty of our baseness, and learn, as the sleepless steel glares
close upon us, how to choose our gOTcmors more wisely, and
our ways more warily. For that which brings swift punish-
ment in war, must have brought slow ruin in peace ; and those
who have now laid down their lives for England, have doubly
saved her; they have humbled at once her enemies and
herself; and have done less for her, in the conquest they
achieve, than in the sorrow that they claim.
. But it is not altogether thus : we have not been cast into this
war by mere political misapprehensions, or popular ignorances.
It is quite possible that neither we nor our rulers may clearly
understand the nature of the conflict ; and that we may be
dealing blows in the dark, confusedly, and as a soldier suddenly
awakened from slumber by an unknown adversary. But I
believe the struggle was inevitable, and that the sooner it came,
the more easOy it was to be met, and the more nobly concluded.
France and England are both of them, from shore to shore, in
a state of intense progression, change, and experimental life.
They are each of them bepnning to examine, more distinctly
than ever nations did yet in the history of the world, the dan-
gerous question respecting the rights of governed, and the
responsibilities of governing, bodies ; not, as heretofore, foaming
over them in red frenzy, with intervals of fetter and straw
crown, but in health, quietness, and daylight, with the help of
a good Queen and a great Emperor ; and to determine them in
a way which, by just so much as it is more effective and rational,
is likely to produce more permanent results than ever before on
the policy of neighboring Ste,tes, and to force, gradually, the
discussion of similar questions into their places of silence. To
force it, — ^for true liberty, like true religion, is always aggressive
or persecuted ; but the attack is generally/ made upon it by the
nation which is to be crushed* — by Persian on Athenian, Tuscan
on Roman, Austrian on Swiss ; or, as now, by Bussia upon us
and our allies : her attack appointed, it seems to me, for confir-
mation of all our greatness, trial of our strengtii, pur^ng and

VOL. III. 15

388 OF THB TEACHSB8 OF TURNER. [PART lY.

pnniihrnent of onr fatilities, and establighment for ever, in our
kandsy of the leadership in the political progress of the world.

Whether this its providential purpose be accomplished, most
depend on its enabling France and England to love one another,
and teaching these, the two noblest foes that ever stood breast
to breast among the nations, first to decipher the law of inter-
national charities ; first to discern that races, like indiriduals,
ean only reach their trae strength, dignity, or joy, in seeking
each the welfare, and exulting each in the glory, of the other.
It is strange how far we still seem from fully perceiying this.
We know that two men, cast on a desert island, could not
thrive in dispeace ; we can understand that four, or twelve,
might still find their account in «nity ; but that a multitude
should thrive otherwise than by the contentions of its classes,
or two muldtudes hold themselves in anywise bound by
brotherly law to serve, support, rebuke, rejoice in one another,
this seems still as far beyond our conception, as the clearest of
commandments, " Let no man seek his own, but every man
another'is wealth," is beyond our habitual practice. Yet, if
once we comprehend that precept in its breadth, and feel that
what we now call jealousy for our country's honor, is, so far as
it tends to other countries' <ft#honor, merely one of the worst,
bei6ause most complacent and self-gratulatory, forms of irreli-
gioii,-:— ^a newly breathed strength will, with the newly interpreted
patriotism, animate and sanctify the efforts of men. Learning,
iinchecked by envy, will be accepted more frankly, throned
more firmly, guided more swiftly ; charity, unchilled by fear,
will dispose the laws of each State, without reluctance to
advantage its neighbor by justice to itself; and admiration,
unwarped by prejudice, possess itself continually of new trea-
sure in the arts and the thoughts of the stranger.

If France and England fail of this, if again petty jealousies
or selfish interests prevail to unknit their hands from the
armored grasp, then, indeed, their faithful children will have
fallen in vain ; there will be a sound as of renewed lamentation
along those Euxine waves, and a shaking among the bones that
bleach by the mounds of Sebastopol. But if they fail not of
this,— if we, in our love of our queens and kings, remember
how France gave to the cause of early civilization, first the

YOU in.] or THB TEACHERS OF TURNEB. 839

greatest, then the holiest, of monorchs ;* and France, in her
love of liberty, remembers how we first raised the standard of
Commonwealth, trusted to the grasp of one good and strong
hand, witnessed for by victory ; and so join in perpetual com-
pact of our different strengths, to contend for justice, mercy,
and truth throughout the world, — ^who dares say that one
soldier has died in vain ? The scarlet of the blood that has
sealed this covenant will be poured along the clouds of a new
aurora, glorious in that Eastern heaven; for every sob of
wreck-fed breaker round those Pontic precipices, the floods
shall clap their hands between the guarded mounts of the
Prince- Angel ; and the spirits of those lost multitudes, crowned
with the olive and rose among the laurel, shall haunt, satisfied,
the willowy brooks and peaceM vales of England, and glide,
triumphant, by the poplar groves and sunned coteaux of Seine.
* Charlemngne and St^ Lonin

VOL. III.] APPSNDIX. 341

APPENDIX.

L CLArDX^B TBSE-DRA.Wnr0.

The reader may not improbably hear it said, by persons who are
incapable of maintaining an honest argament, and therefcnre incapable
of understanding or belieying the honesty of an adversary, that I hAve
caricatnred, or nnfairly chosen, the examples I give of the masters I
depreciate. It is evident, in the first place, that I conld not, if I were
ev^i cnnningly disposed, adopt a worse policy than in so doing; for
the discovery of caricature or ftlsity in my representations, wonid not
only invalidate the immediate statement, bot the whole book; and
invalidate it in the most fatal way, by showing that all I had ever said
about ^^ truth ^ was hypocrisy, and that in my own affiurs I expected
to prevail by help of lies. • Nevertheless it necessarily ha^>ens, that
in endeavors to facsimile any woric whatsoever, bad or good, some
changes are induced torn the exact aspect of the originaL These
changes are, of course, sometimes harm^ sometimes advantageous ;
the bad thing generally gains ; the good thing alwwy loses : so that
I am continually tormented by finding, in my plates of contrasts, the
virtue and vice I exactly wanted to tdk about, eliminated from hoi^
examples. In some cases, however, the bad thing will lose also, and
then I must either cancel the plate, or increase the cost of the woric
by preparing another (at a similar risk), or run the chance of incur-
ring the charge of dishonest representation. I desire, therefore, very
earnestly, and once for all, to have it understood that whatever I say
in the text^ bearing on questions of comparison, refers alvDay9 to the
anginal works ; and that, if the reader has it in his power, I would
&r rather.he should look at those works than at my plates of them ; I
only ^ve the plates for his immediate help and convenience: and I
mention this, with respect to my plate of Olaude's ramification, becanse,
if I have such a thing as a prejudice at all, (and, although I do not
myself think I have, people certainly say so,) it is against Oknde: and
I might, therefore, be sooner suspected of some malice in this plate
tiian in others. But I amply gave the original engravings from the
liber Y^tatis to Mr. Le Eeux, eamesay requesting that the portions

842 APPKHDiz. [part it.

fldeetod might be ikithfUly copied; and I think he is much to he
thanked for bo oarefhlly and roooeMftilly aooompMahing the task. The
figures are from the following plates :•»

Na 1. Part of the central trM in Ka 184. of the liber Yeritatis.

% From the largest tree " 168.

8. Boshei at root of tree " 184.

4. Tree on the left " 188.

ft. Tree on the left «< 1^6.

e. Tree on the left " 12.

n. Principal tree " WL

8. Tree on the right ** 82.

Iff in fiust, any change be effected in the examples in this plate, it is
for the better; for, thus detached, they all lock like small boo^is, in
-vrhioh the fknlts are of little conseqaence ; in the original works they
are seen to be intended for large tnmks of trees, and the errors are
therefore pronounced on a mndi larger scale.

The plate of mediflBval rocks (10.) has been execated with mnch less
attention in transcript, because the points there to be illustrated were
qnite indisputable, and the instances were needed merely to show the
Mnd of thing spoken of, not the skill oi particular masters. The ex-
ample from Leonardo was, however, somewhat oarefblly treated. Mr.
Odff copied it accurately fhym the only engraying of the picture which
I believe exists, and with which, therefore, I suppose the w<nrld is gene-
rally content. That engraving, however, in no re^tect seems to me
to give the lock of the li^t behind Leonardo's rocks ; so I afterwards
darkened the rocks, and put some light into the sky and lily ; and the
effect is certainly more like that of the picture than it is in the same
portion of the old engraving.

Of the other masters representea m the plates of this volume, the
noblest, Tintoret, has assuredly suffered the most (Plate 17.) ; first, in
my too hasty drawing from the ori^nal picture ; and, secondly, thion^
some accidental errors of outline which occurred in the reduction to
the raze of the page; lastly, and chiefly, in the withdrawal of the heads
of the four fignres underneath, in the shadow, <m which the composi-
tion entirely depends. This last evil is unavoidable. It is quite im-
possible to make MtraeU from the great masters without partly spoiling
every separated feature ; the very essence of a noble composition being,
that none should bear separation fr^m the rest.

The plate from Raphael (11 ) is, I think, on the whole, satisfactory.
It cost me much pains, as I had to facsimile the irregular form of every
leaf; each being, in the original picture, executed with a somewhat
wayward pencil-stroke of vivid brown on the dear sky.

Of the Other pUtea it would be tedious to speak in detail. Gene-

VOL. III.] APPENDIX. 343

rallj, it -will be found tihafc I hare taken most pains to do Jnstioe to the
masters of whom I have to speak depredatingly ; and that, if there be
ealomnj at all, it is always of Turner, rather than of OUnde.

The reader might, however, perhaps suspect me of ill-will towards
Constable, owing to my contmnally introducing him for depreciatory
comparison So far from this being the case, I had, as will be seen in
various passages of the first volume, considerable respect for the feeling
with which he worked; bat I was compelled to do harsh jnstioe npcm
liim now, beoanse Mr. Leslie, in his unadvised and nnfi>rtnnate
Tiekwvifft of the fEdlacioos art-maxims of the last century, has suffered
his personal regard for Constable so fiur to prevail over his judgment as
to bring him forward as a great artist, comparable in some kind with
Turner. As ConstaUe's reputation was, even before this, most mis-
chievous, in giving countenance to the blotting and blundering of
If odemism, I saw myself obliged, though unwillingly, to carry the
suggested comparison thoroughly out.

n. GXBMAK PhTLOSOPHT.

Thb reader must have noticed that I never speak of Grerman art, or
German philosophy, but in depreciation. This^ however, is not because
I cannot feel, or would not acknowledge, the value and power, within
certain limits, of both ; but because I also feel tliat the immediate ten-
dency of the English mind is to rate them too highly ; and, tlierefore,
it becomes a necessary task, at present, to mark what evil and weak-
ness there are in them, rather than what good. I also am brought
continually into collision with certain extravagances of the Grerman
mind, by my own steady pursuit of Naturalism as opposed to Idealism ;
and, therefore, I become unfortunately cognizant of the evil, rather
than of the good ; which evil, so far as I feel it, I am bound to declare.
And it is not to the point to protest, as the Chevalier Bunsen and other
German writers have done, against the expression of opinions respect-
ing their philosophy by persons who have not profoundly or carefully
studied it; for the very resolution to study any system of metaphysics
profoundly, must be based, in any prudent man's mind, on some per-
conceived opinion of its worthiness to be studied; which opinion of
German metaphysics the naturalistic English cannot be led to fonn.
This is not to be murmured against, — ^Lt is in the simple necessity of
things. Men who have other business on their hands must be content
to choose what philosophy they have occasion for, by the sample ; and
when, glancing into the second volume of ^^Hippolytus," we find the

844 APPSNDiz. [part IV.

GhevaUer Bmuen IdmMlf talking of a ^ finite realization of the infinite ''
(a phrase o(»rideraUy leas rational than *^a black realization of
white '^f and of a triad oompoaed of God, Man, and Hmnanity * (which
ia a parallel thing to talking of a triad compoeed of man, dog, and
oanineneaa), Imowing thoee expreenons to be pure, definite, and highly
flniahed nonaense, we do not in general tronble otu^lyes to look any
fiuther. Some one will perhapa answer that if one always judged thus
by the aample^^^B, for instance, if one judged of Turner's pictures by
the head of a figure cut out of one ci them, — ^very precious things mi^t
often be desi^aed. Not, I think, often. If any one went to Turner,
expecting to learn figure-drawing from him, the sample of his figure-
drawing would accuratdy and justly inform him that he had come to
the wrong master. But if he came to be taught landscape, the smallest
firagment of Tum^^s work would justly exemplify his power. It may
sometimes unluckily happen that, in such short trial, we strike upon
an accidentally failing part of the thing to be tried, and then we may
be uiyust ; but there is, ueyertheless, in multitudes of cases, no other
way of judging or acting; and the necessity of occasionally being
unjust is a law of life, — ^like that of sometimes stumbling, or being
sick. It will not do to walk at snail's pace all our lives for fear of
stumbling, nor to spend years in the investigation of everything which,
by specimen, we must condemn. He who seizes all that he plainly
discerns to be valuable, and never is unjust but when he honestiy
cannot help it, will soon be enviable in his possessions, and venerable
in his equity.

Nor can I think that the risk of loss is great in the matter under dis-
cussion. I have often been told that any one who will read. Kant,
Strauss, and the rest of the German metaphysicians and divines, reso-
lutely through, and give his whole strength to the study of them, will,
after ten or twelve years' labor, discover that there is very little harm
ill them ; and this I can well believe ; but I believe also that the ten
or twelve years may be better spent; and that any man who honestly
wants philosophy not for show, but for use, and knowing the Proverbs
of Solomon, can, by way of Commentary, afford to buy, in convenient
editions, Plato, Bacon, Wordsworth, Oarlyle, and Helps, will find that
he has got as much as wiU be sufficient for him and his household
during life, and of as good quality as need be.

It is also often declared necessary to study the German controver-

* I am truly sorry to have introduced such words in an apparently
irreverent way. But it would be a guilty reverence which prevented us
from exposing &llac^, precisely where &llacy was most dangerous, and
shrank from unveiling an error, just because that error existed in parlance
respecting the most solemn subjects to which it could possibly be attached.

VOL. m.] APPXNDIX. 345

naliste, beoraw the grmmdB of raligioii ^^ most be inquired into.^' lam
lony tohear they have not been inquired into yet; but if it be so, there
are two ways of pnrsiiing that inquiry : one for aoholarly men, wlio
have lelaore on ihm hands, by reading all that they ha^e time to read,
for and li^ainst, and arming thenuMlTes at all points for controrersy
with all persona ; the other, — a shorter and ampler way, — for busy
and praetical men, who want merely to find out how to live and die.
Kow for the learned and leisurely men I am not writing; they know
what and how to read better tlum I can tell them. F(Mr simple and
busy men, oonoemed much with art, which is eminently a practical
matter, and fiitigues the eyes, so as to render much reading inexpedient,
I am writing ; and such men I do, to the utmost of my power, dissuade
from meddling with Qerman bo<^ ; not because I fear inquiry into
the grounds of religion, but because the only inquiry which is possible
to them must be conducted in a totally different way. They have been
brougtit up aa Christians, and doubt if they should remain Ohristians.
They cannot ascertain, by investigation^ if the Bible be true ; but if it
he^ and Christ ever existed, and was God, then, certainly, the Sermon
which He has permitted for 1800 years to stand recorded as first of all
His own teaching in the New Testament, must be true. Let tiiem take
that Sermon and give it foir practical trial : act out every verse of it,
with no quibbling or explaining away, except the reduction of such
eoidefUly metaphorical expressions as ^^cut off thy foot," ^^ pluck the
beam out of thme eye,'' to their effectively practical sense. Let them
act out, or obey, every verse literally for a whole year, so far as they
can, — a year being Uttle enough time to give to an inquiry into
religion; mxd i^ at the end of the year, they are not satisfied, and still
need to proseonte the inquiro, let them try the German system if they
choose.

ni. PtAGXAIOSM.

Soke time after I had written the concluding chapter of this work, the
interesting and powerftil poems of Emerson w&^ brought under my
notice by one of the members of my class at the Working Men's
College. There is much in some of these poems so like parts of the
chapter in question, even in turn of expression, that though I do not
usually care to Justify myself from the charge of plagiarism, I felt that
a few wcHrds were necessary in this instance.

I do not, as aforesaid, Justify myself, in general, because I know
there is internal evidence in my work of its originality, if people care

15*

S46 APPENDIX. [part rr,

to flun^e it; and if thej do not, or have not skill enough to know
genuine from boirowed work, my simple assertion wonld not oociTinoe
them, especially as the chaige of plai^arismis haidly ever made but by
plagiarists, and perstHis of the nnhappy class who do not behere in
honesty but on eridenoe. KeverthelesB, as my woik is so mooh out of
doors, and among pictnrea, that I have time to read few modern books,
and am therefore in moi« danger than moat people of repeating, as if
it were new, what others hare said, it may be well to note, once for
all, that any such apparent plagiarism results in i&ict from my writings
being more original than I wish them to be, from my having woriced
ont my whole subject in nnavoidaUe, but to myself hnrtftil, ignorance
of the labors oi others. On the other hand, I should be very sorry if
I had not been oontinnally taught and influenced by the writers wlu>m
I love; and am quite unable to say to what extent my thoughts have
been guided by Wordsworth, Oarlyle, and Helps; to whom (with
Dante and George Herbert, in oldcAi time) I owe more than to any
other writers ; — most of all, perhaps, to Garlyle, whom I read so con-
stantly, that, without wilfolly setting myself to imitate him, I find my*
s^ perpetually fidling into his modes of expression, and saying many
things in a ^^ quite other,'* and, I hope, stronger, way, than I should
have adopted some years ago ; as also there are things which I hope
are said more clearly and simply than before, owing to the influence
upon me of the beautiful quiet English of Helps. It would be both
foolish and wrong to struggle to east off influences of this kind; for
they consist mainly in a real and healthy help ; — ^the master, in writing
as in painting, showing certain methods of language which it would be
ridiculoofi^ and even affected, not to employ, when once shown ; just as
it would have been ridiculous in Bonifacio to refuse to employ lltian's
way of laying on color, if he felt it the best, because he had not himself
discovered it. There is all the difference in the world between this
receiving of guidance, or allowing of inflnence, and wilful imitation,
mnch more, plagiarism ; nay, the guidance may even innocently reach
into local tones of thought, and must do so to some extent; so that I
find Carlyle's stronger thinking coloring mine continually ; and should
be very soity if I did not; otherwise I should have read him to little
purpose. But what I have of my own is still all there, and, I believe,
better brought out, by fSw, than it would have been otherwise. Thus,
if we glance over the wit and satire of the popular writers of the day,
we shall find that the manner of it, so far as it is distinctive, is
always owing to Dickens; and that out of his first exquisite ironies
branched innumerable other forms of wit, varying with the disposition
of the writers ; original in the matter and substance of them, yet never
to have been expressed as they now are, but for Dickens.

VOL, III.] APPENDIX. 347

Many people will snppose that for several ideas in the chapters on
Landfloape I was indebted to Hnmboldt^s Kosmos, and Howitt^d Rural
Scenery. I am indebted to Mr. Howitt's book for mnch pleasure, bnt
for no suggestion, as it was not put into my hands till the chapters in
question were in type. I wish it had been ; as I should have been
glad to have talcen farther note on the landscape of Theocritus, on
which Mr. Howitt dwells with just delight Other parts of the book
will be found very suggestive and helpful to the reader who cares to
pursue the subject. Of Humboldt^s Eosmos I heard much talk when
it first came out, and looked through it cursorily ; but thinking it con-
tained no material (connected with my subject)* which I had not
already possessed myself of, I have never since referred to the work.
I may be mistaken in my estimate of it, but certainly owe it absolutely
nothing. '

It is also often said that I borrow from Pugin. I glanced at Pu^n's
Contrasts once, in the Oxford arclutectural reading-room, during an
idle forenoon. His ^^ Remarks on Articles in the Rambler" were
bron^t under my notice by some of the reviews. I never read a
word of any other of his works, not feeling, from the style of his archi-
tecture, the smallest interest in his opinions.

I have so often spoken, in the preceding pages, of Holmaa Hunt's
picture of the li^t of the World, that I may as well, in this place,
glance at the envious charge against it, of being plagiarized from a
German print.

It is indeed true that there was a painting of the subject before ;
and there were, of course, no paintings of the Nativity before Rapha-
eFs time, nor of the Last Supper before Leonardo's, else those masters
could have laid no claim to originality. But what was still more sin-
gular (the verse to be illustrated being, ^^ Behold, I stand at the door
and knock''), the principal figure in the antecedent picture was knock-
ing at a door, knocked with its right hand, and had its face turned to
the spectator I Nay, it was even robed in a long robe, down to its
feet. All these circumstances were the same in Mr. Hunt's jHcture;
and as the chances evidentiy were a hundred to one that if he had not
been helped to the ideas by the German artist, he would have repre-
sented the figure as not knocking at any door, as turning its back to
the spectator, and as dressed in a short robe, the plagiarism was con-
sidered as demonstrated. Of course no defence is possible in such a
case. All I can say is, that I shall be sincerely grateful to any uncon-
scientious persons who will adapt a few more German prints in the
same manner.

« Bee the Fourth Volume.

348 APPSNOix. [fart IV.

Fiiiall J, toaohiiig plagiarifin in general, it is to be remembered that
all men who have eenae and feeling are bdng oontinnally helped : they
are taught by every person whom they meet, and enriched by every-
thing that iUla in their way. The greatest ia he who haa been ofteneet
aided ; and, if the attainments of all homan minds oonld be traced to
their real sources, it would be foond that the world had been laid most
nnder oontribation by the men of most original power, and that every
day of their existence deepened their debt to their race, while it en-
lai^ their gifts to it The labor devoted to trace the origin of any
thong^t, or any invention, will nsnally issne in the blank condnsion
that there is nothing new nnder the snn ; yet nothing that is tmly
great can ever be altogether borrowed ; and he is commonly the wisest,
and is always the happiest, who receives simply, and without envlons
question, whatever good is oflered him, with thanks to its immediate
giver.

John Ruskin's Works,

(UNIFOBM 8KKIE8).

PUBLISHED BY JOHN WILEY, 56 WALKER ST.

1.— MODERN PAINTBRa VOL. L— GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF ART,
And Trath as an Basentlai Element $1 86^
*^ A very eztraordinaiy and dellghtfkil book, Aill of truth and goAdnees, of power and

VOL. n.— TRUE IDEAS OP BEAUTY.

Price, 68 eenta.

** Mr. Boskln^s work will send the painter more than ever to the stndv of nature ; will
train men who have always been delighted spectators of nature, tc be also attentive
observers. Oar critics will learn to admire, and mere admirers will learn how to crili-
eiee ; thus a public will be educated.**— iKocl^uMKKftf Magamin^

VOL. in.— STYLE, FINISH, LANDSCAPE, ETC. ;

With cuts and eighteen illustrations, drawn by the author. $2 50.

**This book may be taken up with equal pleasure whether the reader be acquainted or
■ot with the previous volumes, and no special artistie culture is necessary in order to
M^oy its ezeeUenees or profit by its snggestionab**— WMtmimiUir Rtioitw,

VOL. IV.— MOUNTAIN BEAUTY.

With numerous eats. $1 S6u

2.— THE SEVEN LAMPS OF ARCHITECTURE.
1 voL With Fourteen Etchings, by the author. $1 2S.

**The politician, the moralist, the divine, will And in it ample store of instructive
matter, as well as the artist**— JKBaminer.

3.— THE STONES OF VENICE.
The Foundations. 1 voL Illustrated by numenus wood-cuts from Drawings by the
author. |S OOl

**Noonewho has visited Venice can read this book without having a richer glow
thrown over his remembrances of that dty* and for those who have not Mr. Ruskin
paints it with a flrmneas of outline and vividness of colouring that will bring it before
the imagination with the force of teaXitj.'^—LtUrary QtuMte.

4.— PRE-RAPHAELITISM, AND NOTES ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF

SHEEPFOLDS.
In 1 vol 60 ets.
** There Is much to be collected from it which it is very Important to remember.**—

6.— LECTURES ON ARCHITECTURE AND PAINTING.
Delivered at Edinburgh in Nov. 1868. 1 vol ISwo. With fifteen illustrattons on Unted
paper, after Drawings by the author, f 1 25.

6.— THE ELEMENTS OF DRAWING.
In Three Letters to Beginners. 1 vol. Plates. 75 cts.

**We close this book, feeling confident that no student of Art should lavneh forth
without this work as a compass in the binnacle.**— ^£/ke«a»t«m.

7— THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF ART;
Being the Subject (with additions) of two lectures delivered at Manchester, July, 1857.
tvoL 60 cts.
** It is needless to criticise or commend the works of Buskin.**— 3r. F. O&server.

8.— THE BEAUTIES OF RUSKIN;
Or, the True and the Beautiful In Nature, Art Morals, and Beligion. Selected fron. the
works of John Raskin, with a notice of the author. By Mrs. L'^C. TuthliL 1 vol. f 1 V^

This elegant voluuie, though composed only of extracts, has been so handled, as to
possess all the interest of a continuous work on Art, etc., arranged in chapters, without
Its technicalities, making It an agreeable companion to the Drawing Koom.

** The author is an enthusiast, and inspires the reader with his own Intense love Jbr the
True and the Qood. It would be well to make this work a study in schools and
soUeges.'— ^y. 1". Obwrv^r,

Downing's and other Agricultural Works

PUBLUHSD BT

JOHN WILEY, 66 WALKER ST

DOWNING, A. J. THE FRUITS AND FEUIT TBEES OF AMERICA,

Or, th« Oaltaro, Propftption, and MMUgement in the Garden and Orchard of FruX
Treee generally ; wltn ueaeriptlons of all the finest varletlee of ftntt, native and foreign,
eoltlrated tn thia oonntry. New edition, thoroughly revised, with very Urge additions,
especially in apples and peara. Edited by Charles Downing. Z»q^ brother of the late
A. J. Downing. One voL ISmo., containing over 750 pages. $1 00.

** No maa who has a plot of 60 feet aonare should be without this book ; while to the
owner of teres it is beyond all price.**— ireie6«fvA OoHitU.

** This book is, therefbrei in our opinion, the very best work on Fruitd that we have.^—
Am^Hoam AariemitwHsL

* We hail the present work as the best American Fruit Book exXAnL''—Ohio OuiU

DOWNING, A. J. COTTAGE RESIDENCES:

A Series of DeMigns for Band Cottages and Cottage Villas, and their Gardens and Grounds,
adapted to North America. Ulustrated by nnmeroos engravings. Third edition. 8vo.
Cloth. mWL

*- Here are pleasant precepts, suited to every scale of fortune among us ; and general
maxims which may be studied with almost equal profit by the households in the crowd-
ed citv and the man of taste who retires with a ftill purse, to embody his own ideas of
rural home.**

DOWNING, A. J. LINDLEY»S°HORTICULTURK
With additions. One vol ISmo. $1 i&

DOWNING, A, J. LOUDON'S GARDENING FOR LADIES,
And Companion to the Flower Garden. By Mrs. Loudon. ISmo. Cloth, fl 2IIl

DOWNING, A. J. WIGHTWICK^S HINTS TO YOUNG ARCHITECTS^
CalettUted to fevilltate their practical operation: with additional Notes and Hints te
Persons about Building In the Country. 8vo. Cloth. $1 M.

PARSONS ON 'the ROSE.
The Bose— Its History, Poetry, Culture, and Classification. With two large colored
Dlates, and other engravings. In one voL 12mo. New edition, with additions. Cloth.

|i oa

**This elegant volnme, devoted to a subject of onlversal attraetlveness, and exhausting
most of the learning which applies to it, deserves a wide popularity.**

VtL

KEMP ON LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

How to Lay Out a Garden. Intended as a general Guide in choosing, foniil« ^ or im-
proving an estate (from a quarter of an acre to a hundred acres in ezti'tnt), with leferenoe
to both design and execution. By Edward Kemp, Landscape Ganiener, Birkenhead
Park. Greatly enlarged, and illustrated with nnnierons plans, sections, and sketches of
gardens and garden objects. I voL tSmo. Cloth. Gilt |8 00.
t ** This is Just the book that thousands want**—^. F. Observer,

** It should be in the liands of every one who makes even the slightest pretensions to
OardeDing.**~PAito. OUy JUm,

CLAUSSEN. THE^FLAX MOVEMENT.
Its Importance and Advantages ; with Directions fur the Preparation of Flax Cotton, and
tlie Cultivation of Flax. By the Chevalier Claussen. ISmo. IS cents.

LIEBIG. PRINCIPLES OF AGRICULTURAL CHEMLsTRY
With special reference to the Ute researches made in England. 1 vol ISmo. Cloth. 60a

%• Copiea toiU be mailed to any addrees, and prepaid^ on the receipt qf the pHc4
CM*9 and Societiee v>Ul be supplied wih the toot'lke/vr premiwne^ at a dieoomnt.

Valuable Scientific Works

FUBLI8UED BY

JOHN WILEY, 66 WALKER ST.

BUBGESS» N. G. THE PHOTOGRAPH AN! AMBROTTPE MANUAI4
A Practical Treatlfle o 1 the art of taking Positlye and Negative Photographs on Papei
and Qlaas, &e, 1 toL ISmo. Cloth. $1 00.

PAIRBAIRN (WM.) O.B., P.R.S., ETC. ON THE APPLICATION OP

CAST AND WROUGHT IRON TO BUILDING PURPOSB&
1 vol 8ro. Nmnerons cat& Oloth. |3 00.
**No engineer can do without thia hookJ^—SciMtt/lo Am^riean,

HAND BOOK OP YOUNG ARTISTS AND AMATEURS IN OIL

PAINTING;
Being chiefly a condensed compilation from the celebrated Manual of Bouvler, and
other distinffuished Ck>ntinental Writers on the Art Adapted for a Text-Book, as well
as for Self-uistraction. Appended— a new Explanatory and Crittcal Yocabnliuy. By
an American Artist 12mo. Cloth. $1 2fi.

HATFIELD (R. G.). THE AMERICAN HOUSE CARPENTER.
A Treatise upon Architecture, Cornices, and Mouldings, FraminK, Doors, Windows, and
Stairs, etc New, thoroughly reyised and improved edition, wiu about 100 additional
pages and numerous additional plates. 1 voL Svo. $2 60.
** Every House Carpenter ought to possess one of these bodkaJ^^Joumal ^ Commerce.

LESLEY (J. P.). THE IRON MANUFACTURER'S GUIDE,
To the Furnaces, Forges, and BoUins Mills of the United States, with maps ; to which
is appended a History of the Manufacture of Iron, a summary of the Statistics of the
American Production of Iron, and a geological discussion of the Iron Ores of the U. S..
by J. P. Lesley, Secretary of the American Iron Association, and published by order ol
the Board of Managers. 1 vol Svo. $5 00.
** Invaluable to every miner, manufacturer, and dealer of iron.^

REID'S VENTILATION IN AMERICAN DWELLINGS.
With a Series of Diagrams, presenting Examples in Different Classes of Habitation. By
David Buswell Beid, M.D., F.E.S.£^ formerly Director of the YentllaUon at the Houses
of Parliament London, eta, etc To which is added an Introductory Outline of the
Progress of Improvement in Yentilation. By Elisha Harris, M.D., late Physician in
Chief of tbe N. Y. Quarantine Hospitals, etc, etc. 1 voL Svo., oontaining about 100
diagrams ooL and pUdn. $2 00.

** We know of no book where in so brief a space, the best means of airing, warming,
and lighting buildings are so clearly set forth, »>« in that we have Just described." — Oin-
cifMMM OaaetU,

SMITH (LIEUT. R. S.). A MANUAL OP TOPOGRAPHICAL DRAWING.
By Lieut B. S. Smith, U. 8. Army, Professor of Drawing in the U. S. Military Academy,
West Point 1 voL 8vo., plates, doth. $1 60.

** We regard the work as a choice addition to the library of science and art <^<1 oi>*
that has long been needed by the Professor." — B, B. Jottrnal,

SMITH (LIEUT. R. S.). MANUAL OP LINEAR PERSPECTIVE.
Perspective of Form, Shade, Shadow and Reflection. 1 voL Svo. Plates. $1 60.

** We do not remember to have seen a more complete and popular treatise on the sub
Ject''— iS. B. Journal.

SMEE. ELEMENTS OP ELECTRO-METALLURGY.
Revised, corrected, and considerablv enlar^d. Illostrated with Electrotypes and
numerous wood-cuts. 1 voL 12mo. $1 25.

WEISSENBORN (G.) AMERICAN ENGINEERING.
Illustrated by lanre and detached EDgravin^ embracing various branches of Mechanical
Art Stationa.7, Marine, and Locomotive Engines, Manufacturing Machinery, Printing
Presses, Tools, Orist Steam, Saw, and Boiling Mills, Iron Buildings, Ac. of the newest
and most approved construction. To be issued in numbers. Price per No. $1 00.

Hyaoux?

4